ililllif; 

II  tiijIiiiHiiJHiilliiHHHIHHtt  H  Plua 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


OF" 


Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

'  Received  October,  1894. 

Accessions  No  .  J(f-L    Class  No. 


fill 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1859,  by 
P  E  T  E  R     0  .     T  A  Y  L  0  P  . 

President  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


STEK  EOT  V  I'ED   BY 

THOMAS    15.    SMITH    &    SON, 

82  &  84  Bookman-street,  N.  Y. 


I'  R  I  N  T  K  I)      i;  Y 
K  .     O  .    i  E  X  K.  1  S  8  , 

Frankfort-street,  N.  Y 


GRAHAM  LECTURES: 

ON      THE 

POWER,   WISDOM  AND   GOODNESS 
OF    GOD, 

AS    MANIFESTED    IX    HIS    WORKS. 
VOLUME  II. 

1'UHLISIIED      BY 

THE    BROOKLYN    INSTITUTE 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE. 


For  the  sake  of  convenience  and  clearness  in  the 
arrangement,  what  was  prepared  and  delivered  as 
six  Lectures,  is  here,  with  a  few  additions,  distrib 
uted  into  eight. 

F.   D.   H. 

CAMBRIDGE,  May  1,  1859. 


PREFACE. 


THE  Directors  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute  have 
much  pleasure  in  presenting  to  the  Public,  the 
Graham  Lectures,  thus  far  published,  on  the  POWER, 
WISDOM,  AND  GOODNESS  OF  GOD,  AS  MANIFESTED  IN 
His  WORKS. 

This  course,  by  Professor  Huntington,  was  very 
fully  attended  ;  so  much  so,  as  to  make  it  very 
desirable  that  we  should  have  a  larger  room  than 
the  present  one  for  the  future  lectures  of  the  In 
stitute. 

These  Lectures  were  intended  by  Mr.  Graham  to 
treat  of  the  works  of  God,  separate  and  apart  from 
polemic  theology,  or  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  the 
sects  into  which  the  religious  world  is  divided. 

The  whole  of  God's  works  may  furnish  the  sub 
jects  of  these  discourses,  whether  in  their  greatest 
or  most  minute  forms  ;  their  simple  or  their  com 
plex  organizations ;  their  adaptations,  their  laws,  their 
skill,  their  wisdom,  their  harmonies,  their  divine  char 
acter.  The  lecturer,  therefore,  stands,  as  it  were,  in 


VI 


PREFACE. 


the  presence  of  the  great  Architect,  to  expound 
that  portion  of  the  creation  which  he  has  chosen 
for  his  theme,  and  thus  to  exhibit  the  "  Power, 
Wisdom,  and  Goodness"  of  the  Creator,  as  teach 
ing  the  sublime  sentiments  of  justice  and  benev 
olence  to  all  His  creatures,  and  of  love  and  rev 
erence  for  the  Universal  Father. 

The  Directors  feel  gratified  with  the  success  of 
these  Lectures,  and  shall  continue,  from  time  to 
time,  as  funds  arise  from  the  noble  endowment  of 
Mr.  Graham,  to  endeavor  to  procure  the  requisite 
talent  and  accomplishment  for  future  courses  of  lec 
tures  ;  such  as  shall  gradually  form  a  series  of 
publications  of  sterling  character,  eminently  useful, 
elevating  to  the  public  taste  and  morals,  and  hon 
orable  to  our  Institute. 

PETER  G.  TAYLOR,  President; 
OLIVER  HULL,  Vice  President; 
JOHN  W.  PRAY,  Secretary ; 
THOMAS  EOWE,   Treasurer. 


THOMAS  WOODWARD,     WILLIAM  EVERDELL,  JR., 
AUSTIN  MELVIN,  DUNCAN  LITTLEJOHN, 

ELI  AS  LEWIS,  JR.,         GEORGE  KISSAM, 
ALFRED  M.  WOOD,        CHARLES  H.  BAXTER, 
JESSE  C.  SMITH, 


Directors. 


BROOKLYN,  October  1,  1859. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTE, 7 

HUMAN  SOCIETY, 

A    DIVINE    APPOINTMENT, 1-38 

A    LIVING    INSTRUMENT    OF    DIVINE   THOUGHT,    .       .  39-74 

A    DISCIPLINE    OF    INDIVIDUAL    CHARACTER,  .       .       .  75-100 

A    SCHOOL    OF    MUTUAL    HELP, 107-142 

IN    RELATION    TO    SOCIAL    THEORIES, 143-19* 

IN   RELATION   TO    THE    INTELLKCT, 191-228 

SUBJECT   TO    A    LAW    OF    ADVANCEMENT,  ....  229-268 
THE     SPHERE     OF     THE     KINGDOM    OF    CHRIST    ON 

EARTH,        269-307 


GRAHAM    LECTURES. 


LECTURE    I. 

SOCIETY     A    DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

HERE,  on  the  scene  of  his  industrious  and  be 
neficent  life,  among  his  fellow-citizens  who  knew  his 
virtues  so  well,  who  reap  a  daily  advantage  from 
his  liberal  foresight,  and  who  honor  his  memory 
faithfully,  it  is  not  for  me,  a  stranger,  to  eulogize 
the  man  who  laid  the  foundation  of  these  Lec 
tures.  When  he  provided,  in  his  last  testament,  that 
their  ever-recurring  subject  should  be  the  Wisdom, 
the  Power,  the  Goodness  of  our  God,  he  neither 
over  valued  the  inexhaustible  richness  of  the  theme, 
nor  mistook  the  first  need  of  his  age.  Of  all  his 
enterprise,  his  integrity,  his  success,  that  thought 
for  his  Creator's  honor  was  the  crown.  In  that 
provision,  according  to  the  terms  of  it,  his  laborious 
career  rose  into  the  region  of  worship. 

In   the  particular  line   of  thought  through  which  I 


2  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

am  to  attempt  to  aid  in  carrying  out  the  noble 
purpose  of  the  Founder,  it  is  among  my  satisfac 
tions  that  my  choice  falls  into  an  orderly  connection 
with  what  was  so  ably  and  brilliantly  presented  by 
my  only  predecessor  in  the  series.* 

The  Lecturer  who  went  before  me  exhibited  the 
illustrations  of  those  Divine  Attributes  as  they  lie 
in  the  "  Constitution  of  the  Human  Soul."  From 
that,  what  so  natural  as  to  proceed  outward  into 
the  attitude  and  offices  of  human  beings  toward 
each  other;  to  contemplate  the  wonderful  texture, 
the  manifold  elements,  the  living  powers  of  the 
Social  Body;  and  to  trace  the  marks  of  a  Heavenly 
Parentage  and  Providence  in  the  universal  associ 
ation  of  man  with  man?  Uniting  the  Founder's 
general  testamentary  precept  with  my  own  special 
selection,  and  giving  my  whole  subject  an  express 
statement,  it  is  THE  WISDOM,  POWER,  AND  GOODNESS 
OF  GOD  AS  MANIFESTED  IN  THE  STRUCTURE,  THE  OF- 
PICES,  AND  THE  RELATIONS  OF  HUMAN  SOCIETY. 

It   will   not  be    supposed   that   any  formal   attempt 


*  Rev.  R.  S.  Storrs,  Jr.,  D.D.,  of  Brooklyn.  The  place  he  occupies  in 
that  community  will  justify  the  personal  reference,  if  I  express  the  joy  I 
feel  in  adding  to  many  earlier  bonds  of  attachment  between  him  and  me, 
this  coincidence  of  studies  in  the  common  prosecution  of  one  of  the 
most  munificent  public  designs  that  any  single  American  benefactor 
has  initiated.  The  Lectures  of  Dr.  Storrs  were  published  by  the  "  In 
stitute"  in  1857. 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  3 

is  to  be  made  to  demonstrate  to  a  sceptical  under 
standing  the  fact  that  there  is  a  God.  Not  only 
that  primary  religious  truth,  which  even  Revelation 
assumes  in  its  first  sentence,  is  supposed  to  be 
granted,  but  many  related  and  dependent  truths 
besides.  The  real  infirmity  of  Christian  faith  is  not 
that  the  being  and  attributes  of  the  Deity  are  denied, 
but  that  they  lie  off  from  the  living  apprehension 
of  the  spiritual  nature.  Much  as  we  distrust  the 
religious  competency  of  the  intellect,  the  brain  does 
not  play,  by  any  means,  the  worst  part  in  atheism : 
its  most  frequent  error  in  that  respect  is,  that  it 
fancies  itself  an  atheist  when  it  is  not,  but  is  only 
playing  atheist,  at  the  instigation  of  pride,  or  appe 
tite,  or  disappointed  ambition,  or  some  other  dema 
gogue  in  the  rabble  of  the  passions.  The  grand 
necessity  of  religion  at  present,  I  conceive,  is  not  to 
find  out  whether  God  is,  but  where  he  is :  that  is, 
to  apprehend  his  immediate  activity  and  Lordship  in 
the  world  of  our  life,  so  joined  with  it  as  he  could 
only  be  through  the  incarnation.  I  take  one  of  the 
departments  of  that  life,  lying  midway  between  the 
individual  consciousness  or  personality  and  outward 
nature : — Humanity  in  its  social  combinations ;  and 
with  the  twofold  object  of  gaining  a  rational  inter 
pretation  of  society  itself,  by  investigating  it  from 
its  only  centre,  or  point  of  original  power,  and  of 


4  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

showing  how  it  lies  perpetually  within  the  conscious 
presence,  and  subject  to  the  instant  control,  of  the 
Infinite  Spirit.  So  far  as  my  inquiries  have  ex 
tended,  there  is  not,  in  any  literature,  anything  like 
a  systematic  or  philosophical  attempt  to  trace  the 
laws,  or  to  unfold  the  significance  of  Human  Soci 
ety,  under  this,  or  indeed  any  other,  very  compre 
hensive  principle  of  analysis  and  combination.  I  do 
not  aspire  to  supply  that  deficiency.  Neither  the 
original  purpose  of  Mr.  Graham,  nor  your  own  view 
of  what  would  be  most  useful,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
would  lead  us  here  to  that  more  speculative  method 
of  treatment,  which  would  be  natural  if  a  pure  phi 
losophy  of  the  subject  were  the  object  contemplated. 
But  you  have  come  together  to  enter  on  a  study  in 
that  direction  with  me  to-night.  I  cannot  help  tell 
ing  you  how  much  it  adds  to  my  own  interest, 
beforehand,  in  the  evenings  we  are  to  spend  together, 
that,  by  the  continuity,  regularity,  and  frequency 
assigned  to  these  exercises  by  the  judgment  of  the 
"Institute,"  our  assembly  takes  on  something  of  the 
character  of  a  domestic  circle,  where  speaker  and 
hearers  are  constantly  coming  into  a  more  direct  and 
simple  relation  with  one  another,  illustrating,  in  fact, 
much  belonging  to  the  very  theme  we  have  to 
unfold.  You  will  be  patient  with  defects.  You 
will  take  pains  to  notice  the  distribution  and  mu- 


SOCIETY  A  DIVINE   APPOINTMENT.      5 

tual  connection  of  the  parts.  And  you  will  remem 
ber  how  much,  both  from  the  necessary  restrictions 
of  time,  and  from  limitations  more  obstinate  than 
those,  must  be  left  out. 

The  lectures  will  be  arranged  in  the  following  or 
der  of  subjects.  In  the  1st,  Society  will  be  consid 
ered  as  a  Divine  Appointment  in  itself;  in  the  2d, 
as  a  Living  Instrument  of  Divine  Thought;  in  the 
3d,  as  a  Discipline  of  Individual  Character;  in  the 
4th,  as  a  School  of  Mutual  Assistance  ;  in  the  5th, 
as  to  Social  Theories ;  in  the  6th,  as  a  Motive 
and  Incentive  to  the  Intellect;  in  the  7th,  as  hold 
ing  in  itself  Laws  of  its  own  Progression;  and  in 
the  8th,  as  the  Sphere  of  the  earthly  Kingdom  of 
Christ. 

Taking  Lord  Bacon's  division  of  human  knowledge 
into  History,  Philosophy,  and  Poetry,  our  subject 
cannot  be  assigned  exclusively  to  the  province  of 
either  one,  but  it  touches  them  all.  It  opens  into 
History,  for,  as  Dr.  Arnold  has  so  well  said,  "  The 
general  idea  of  history  seems  to  be  that  it  is  the 
biography  of  a  society  having  a  common  life."  It 
has  to  do  with  Philosophy,  for  we  are  to  regard 
this  Social  Life  pre-eminently  as  under  laws,  laws 
that  condition  and  regulate  its  growth,  laws  whose 
wonderful  working,  from  Eden  in  the  past  to  the 
mysterious  issues  of  the  future,  furnish  to  the  phi- 


6      SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT. 

losophic  mind  its  profoundest  problem.  It  includes 
the  source  of  Poetry,  because  it  is  out  of  the  rise 
and  conflict,  the  ecstacy  and  suffering,  the  joy  and 
agony,  of  those  very  passions  which  form  the  ele 
ments  of  social  change,  that  imagination  builds  its 
most  august  and  wondrous  visions,  and  the  poet, 
tragic,  lyric,  or  epic,  sings  his  immortal  song. 

Remark  that  Society,  as  we  are  here  to  consider 
it,  is  not  a  society  formally  organized,  combined  into 
a  commonwealth,  constituted  into  a  political  unity. 
Universal  society  has  not  as  yet  taken  that  shape. 
Whether  such  a  sublime  consummation  is  ever  to 
be;  whether  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  yet  to  be 
drawn  under  a  single  outward  economy,  not  only 
moral  but  civil,  and  the  golden  index  of  old  pro 
phecy  be  seen  pointing  to  a  Fold  which  shall  be  also 
a  State, — the  Law  going  forth  from  some  central  Je 
rusalem,  and  all  nations  flowing  into  it, — this  may  be 
a  question  for  faith,  a  dream  for  hope.  The  prin 
ciples  now  to  be  discussed  are  independent  of  that 
speculation.  They  stand  even  in  society  as  it  now 
is,  broken,  of  diverse  races,  of  warring  tribes, — 
a  multitude,  but  not"  a  proper  union :  inasmuch  as 
beneath  all  its  variety  of  polities,  and  all  its  diver 
sity  of  culture,  and  all  its  hostility  of  interests, 
there  runs,  deep  down,  a  mighty  bond  of  oneness 
after  all,  best  expressed  by  the  simple  word  human, 


SOCIETY  A  DIVINE   APPOINTMENT.      7 

making  each  man,  despite  every  difference,  brother 
to  every  other  man;  just  as  one  comprehensive 
principle  encircles  and  pervades  all  varieties  of  veg 
etable  production,  from  hyssop  to  cedar,  or  one  ar 
tistic  design  winds  into  a  profound  harmony  all  the 
unequal  keys  and  notes  and  instruments  of  an 
orchestra,  and  all  the  measures,  themes,  voices,  and 
even  pauses,  of  an  oratorio.  For,  as  a  scholar  in 
the  oldest  English  university*  has  finely  said:  "Uni 
versal  history  has  enriched  our  language  with  a 
word  that  never  passed  the  lips  of  Plato,  Socrates, 
or  Aristotle, — the  word  mankind.  Where  the  Greek 
saw  barbarians,  we  see  brethren.  Where  he  saw 
heroes  and  demigods,  we  see  parents  and  ancestors. 
Where  he  saw  nations,  we  see  mankind  many  ways 
severed,  but  moving  to  one  destiny,  and  bearing 
one  image  of  God ;  as  where  the  ancient  astronomic 
observer  saw  separate  spheres  in  the  sky,  we  see 
a  single  system,  balanced  in  itself  and  harmonized 
by  one  centralizing  attraction." 

At  present,  I  ask  you  to  contemplate  society, 
under  a  somewhat  introductory  and  general  aspect, 
as  a  Divine  appointment  in  itself.  And  this  may 
be  set  forth  the  more  clearly,  if  we  seek  the  proofs, 
first,  in  the  nature  of  the  thing,  Society ;  secondly, 

*  A.  P.  Stanley,  now  "  Regius  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History"  at 
Oxford,  in  his  Inaugural  Address. 


8      SOCIETY  A  DIVINE   APPOINTMENT. 

in   its    origin;    and   thirdly,    in   its    historical   develop 
ment. 

I.  To  know  society,  either  as  to  its  composition 
or  its  functions,  doubtless  we  must  first  know  man. 
Man  is  the  prime  material  of  mankind.  Society  is 
simply  human  nature  existing  in  its  natural  combi 
nations.  It  is  all  the  faculties  of  man  in  one 
mode  of  their  exhibition, — reason,  will,  conscience, 
affection.  Only,  consider,  the  combination  is  such, 
that  the  humanity  itself  could  not  be  complete  with 
out  it.  There  are  capacities  in  man  to  which  so 
ciety  is  just  as  necessary  as  light  to  the  eye  or 
food  to  the  body.  You  cannot  do  your  best,  put 
forth  your  strongest,  live  out  your  noblest,  save  in 
a  social  state,  where  every  other  man  is  free  to  do 
the  same.  In  one  sense,  man  is  greater  than  so 
ciety;  as  the  simple  personality  is  greater  in  itself 
than  in  any  one  of  its  modes  of  being  and  acting. 
Yet,  society  is  a  grander  interest  than  the  inter 
est  of  any  one  man.  If  there  must  be  a  conflict 
of  rights  or  privileges,  those  of  many  are  dearer 
than  those  of  one.  But,  when  we  come  to  duties, 
or  the  right,  the  collision  is  an  impossibility.  No 
public  duty  can  be  made  up  of  any  bundle  where 
of  one  stick  is  a  broken  conscience.  So  that  no 
social  advantage  can  ever  override  one  man's  sacred 
integrity.  Private  wrong  can  never  be  an  ingredi- 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  9 

ent  of  public  right.  Privileges  may  be  waived ; 
conveniences  sacrificed.  This  hurts  nobody;  it  is 
the  glory  of  heroic  hearts ;  and  society  cannot  live 
richly  without  it.  But  duties  are  inalienable  and 
inviolable.  Society,  like  all  God's  workmanship,  ex 
ists  to  preserve  and  to  multiply  them. 

One  writer  defines  Society  as  a  system  of  mer 
cantile  exchanges,  evidently  on  the  same  low  con 
ceptions  of  humanity,  and  the  same  materialistic 
maxims  of  philosophy,  that  would  limit  the  ends 
of  Government  to  the  protection  of  property.  The 
fatal  flaw  of  both  notions  is,  that  they  ignore  the 
whole  upper  register  of  human  sentiments,  mistake 
comfort  for  well-being,  and  degrade  the  lofty  com 
merce  of  spirit  with  spirit  into  the  vulgar  bargain 
ing  of  political  selfishness. 

What,  then,  is  our  definition  of  Society  ?  It  is 
the  co-existence  of  men,  and  families  of  men,  on 
terms  of  mutual  intercourse,  for  certain  common 
ends,  under  the  Providence  of  God.  Other  crea 
tures  are  gregarious.  Mankind,  alone,  are  social. 
There  are  herds  of  cattle,  flocks  of  birds,  shoals  of 
fishes ;  but  in  none  of  these,  society.  If  mankind 
were  associated  only  to  eat,  sleep,  hunt,  and  secure 
animal  protection,  those  brute  terms  would  apply. 
As  they  forget  their  destiny,  they  do  degenerate 
into  droves.  But,  for  society,  there  must  be  some- 


10    SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT. 

thing  more  than  an  affinity  for  living  together.  The 
object  of  the  congregating  must  be  the  educating, 
maturing,  completing,  of  a  human  nature ;  rational, 
affectional,  immortal.  Go  back  to  the  beginning. 
Given,  the  planet  in  a  raw  state,  centuries  of  time, 
and  man  undeveloped  or  apostatized;  required,  to 
make  the  earth  the  abode  of  a  civilized,  Christian 
brotherhood.  These  are  the  conditions  of  the  prob 
lem.  Human  society  is  ordained  to  give  it  a  prac 
tical  solution. 

To  elucidate  further  the  doctrine  of  society,  as 
we  are  here  to  consider  it,  refer  to  the  nomencla 
ture  of  science,  and  so  disengage  it  from  other 
things  with  which  it  might  possibly  be  confounded. 
This  doctrine  of  society  is  distinct  from  Anthropol 
ogy:  Anthropology  deals  with  man  simply  in  his 
relation  to  other  parts  of  the  animal  kingdom, — as 
a  member  of  the  zoological  system,  —  marks  the 
points  of  difference  between  him  and  the  creatures 
below  him;  a  branch  of  natural  history.  It  is  dis 
tinct,  too,  from  Ethnology :  Ethnology  deals  with  the 
races  of  men,  marks  their  difference  from  one  an 
other,  and  notices  individuals  only  as  belonging  to 
one  or  another  of  these  races.  It  is  distinct  from 
Ethics :  Ethics  is  the  science  of  duties,  the  social 
duties  being  considered,  but  not  exclusively ;  besides, 
we  have  other  things  in  society  to  notice  here  be- 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  11 

sides  its  morality.  It  is  distinct  from  Theology, 
of  course :  Theology  deals  with  the  nature  and 
methods  of  God,  and  thus  of  the  relations  of  man 
with  the  Divine  Life  above  him;  while  our  subject, 
though  immersed  altogether  in  the  truths  of  religion, 
touches  Theology  proper  only  on  one  of  its  sides, 
or  one  section  of  its  circle.  Finally,  it  is  distinct 
from  Political  Economy:  Political  Economy  is  the 
science  of  those  laws  which  regulate  the  produc 
tion,  distribution,  and  consumption  of  the  things  in 
men's  possession  which  have  an  exchangeable  value; 
in  the  view  of  Political  Economy  alone,  the  great 
threefold  object  of  social  existence  would  be  "secu 
rity  of  property,  freedom  of  industry,  and  modera 
tion  in  public  expenditure."  These  are  actual  social 
interests,  essentials  of  social  welfare.  But  society 
exists  for  something  beyond  its  own  possessions. 

Let  us  not  hesitate,  then,  to  plant  our  feet 
firmly,  even  by  definition,  on  the  broad  position 
that  Society  is  a  Divine  Appointment.  The  Former 
who  made  us,  made  us  to  be  social.  In  the  orig 
inal  plan  of  his  constitution,  man  was  not  meant 
to  live  alone.  Though  it  were  possible  for  every 
individual  of  the  species  to  reach  the  perfection  of 
his  private  nature  in  a  solitary  state, — which  it  is 
not, — still,  the  purposes  of  God,  in  his  creation, 
would  not  be  answered.  Not  so  many  isolated 


12          SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

units,  but  a  Social  Body,  was  clearly  the  thought 
that  lay  in  the  mind  of  God  when  he  said,  "  Let 
us  make  man  in  our  own  image."  Association  is 
not  an  accident  befalling  man  on  his  way.  It  is 
an  inherent  promise,  want,  fact,  put  into  his  com 
plex  organization  at  the  start.  The  social  state  is 
not  a  circumstance,  but  a  law :  not  an  economy, 
but  a  principle. 

Accordingly,  as  we  might  expect,  in  a  social  state 
forms  of  human  energy  and  character  come  to  light 
which  never  could  be  found  in  the  separate  per 
son.  I  have  said  that  to  know  society,  we  must  first 
know  man.  Let  it  be  now  remembered,  however, 
that  by  knowing  an  isolated  specimen  of  man,  we 
do  not  know  all  that  belongs  to  the  generic  idea  of 
man,  or  man  absolute.  Put  with  that  first  truth 
this  also, — that  as  we  must  study  society  through 
man,  so  we  must  study  man  through  society.  Not 
only  his  outward  institutions,  like  Seats  of  Learning, 
Institutes  of  Science,  Houses  of  Mercy,  Systems  of 
Commerce,  which  are  themselves  a  positive  good  to 
the  individual,  but  inward  traits  of  the  soul,  apper 
tain  to  this  social  provision  of  his  nature.  It  is 
enough  to  name  here  affection,  conscience,  self-sacri 
fice,  sympathy,  pity,  the  loftiest  attributes  of  Hu 
manity,  most  resembling  man  to  his  Maker, — of  which 
more  is  to  be  said  further  on.  Thus,  while  each  per- 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.          13 

son  may  be  a  specimen  of  the  general  capacities  of 
the  whole,  yet  in  the  social  union,  which  is  a  com 
pound  more  complex  than  any  mixed  by  science, 
new  and  independent  witnesses  come  forth  to  de 
clare  the  glory  of  God ;  just  as  in  chemistry,  it 
has  been  beautifully  shown,  that  while  the  combin 
ing  attraction  is  between  particle  and  particle,  there 
are  yet  results, — phenomena,  colors,  uses,  and  even 
forces, — in  the  combination,  not  found  in  the  seve 
ral  atoms  at  all.  What  was  latent  in  the  ele 
ments  becomes  apparent  in  the  compound;  and  what 
was  dormant  in  the  parts,  is  active  in  the  whole. 

II.  Secondly,  the  social  body  bears  the  stamp 
of  its  Maker  on  its  origin.  This  has  been  denied. 
On  both  sides,  the  question  has  been  argued  and 
learnedly  reasoned, — by  thinkers,  however,  whose  con 
clusions  have  been  generally  much  influenced  either 
by  their  philosophical  or  political  doctrines,  instead 
of  being  purely  evolved  from  the  elements,  and  de 
termined  by  the  merits,  of  the  case.  Indeed,  the 
origin  of  society  has  hardly  been  considered  inde 
pendently  of  the  origin  of  political  institutions. 

One  theory  of  society  makes  it  to  spring,  not 
from  the  Divine  will,  but  out  of  a  mutual  league 
between  man  and  man, — purely  human  in  its  scope, 
purely  conventional  in  its  principles,  purely  acci 
dental  in  its  ultimate  destination, — God  dethroned 


14          SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

from  its  control,  and  all  Divine  signatures  swept 
away  from  its  face.  Of  this  theory  the  ablest  ad 
vocate  is  Thomas  Hobbes,*  "the  philosopher  of 
Malmesbury,"  born  1588,  and  writing  chiefly  about 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century.  By  his 
system,  man  finds  himself  separate  from  his  kind, 
existing  for  his  own  pleasure,  "a  solitary,  selfish 
animal."  As  soon  as  he  meets  his  fellow-man,  there 
springs  up  a  conflict  of  interests ;  and,  as  interest 
is  the  only  object,  they  fight.  Hostility  is  the 
first  impulse, — repulsion  without  attraction.  Univer 
sal  and  incessant  war  is  the  state  of  nature.  This 
notion  Hobbes  supports  by  such  sophistical  asser 
tions  as  that  men  everywhere  arm  themselves  when 
they  take  journeys, — which  they  do  not;  that  they 
lock  their  chests  and  bolt  their  doors  at  night,— 
which  they  do,  only  not  against  the  community 
generally,  but  against  a  few  thieves  and  burglars 
whom  Law  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  overtaking 
and  getting  arrested.  This  fighting  savage,  how 
ever,  says  Hobbes,  finds  the  universal  combat  in 
convenient  and  unprofitable.  He  must  eat  when 
he  is  hungry,  and  so  prepare  his  food ;  rest  when 
he  is  tired,  and  so  prepare  his  shelter.  Industry 

*  "  Leviathan  ;  or  the  Matter,  Form  and  Power  of  a  Commonwealth." 
See  also  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Preliminary  Dissertation  I.,  by  Dugald 
Stewart ;  Cousin's  critique  in  his  Cours  de  la  Histoire  de  la  Philo 
sophic ;  and  Jouffroy's  "Ethics." 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  15 

and  comfort  require  a  suspension  of  strife.  All 
parties  bethink  themselves  of  a  mutual  agreement 
to  let  each  other  alone,  and  respect  each  other's 
property,  so  far  and  so  long  as  self-interest  pre 
scribes.  Hence  the  restraints  and  bonds  of  social 
and  political  being.  The  next  step  is  to  guard 
against  new  confusions  by  committing  the  supreme 
authority  to  a  single  head.  An  absolute  sovereignty, 
with  indefeasible  powers,  is  the  result;  for  any  dis 
turbance  of  these  would  throw  back  the  whole  Body 
into  the  primitive  discord.  The  will  of  the  ruler  is 
the  standard  of  right  and  wrong.  Despotism  for 
the  State,  Atheism  for  the  Soul,  Slavery  for  the 
People ; — legitimate  results  of  a  system  that  starts 
with  making  a  godless  selfishness  the  fundamental 
motive  of  Social  Union.  Personal  traits  often  throw 
light  on  intellectual  conclusions.  Hobbes  wras  con 
stitutionally  a  victim  of  fear,  frightened  all  his  life ; 
— the  spirit  of  terror,  he  says,  born  with  him.* 
And  his  biographer  says,  as  he  lay  dying,  he  re 
marked  to  an  attendant,  "  I  shall  be  glad  to  find 
a  hole  to  creep  out  of  the  world  at."  To  be  sure, 
his  theory  of  the  world  was  constructed  as  if  it 
were  a  place  to  be  crept  out  of. 

Rousseau,  whose   erratic   genius   was   doubtless   one 
of    the    efficient    causes    of    the    French    Revolution 

*  "  Meque  metumque  simul,"  arc  his  words. 


16          SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

and  of  modern  individualism,  a  writer  more  pene 
trating  than  comprehensive,  and  more  brilliant  than 
profound,  starts  with  much  the  same  ideas  as 
Hobbes,  but  carries  them  out  to  totally  opposite 
consequences.  With  him,  too,  orderly  society,  though 
nominally  required  by  the  pure  reason,  is  little  else 
than  the  result  of  compromises  of  self-interest.  In 
his  treatise*  on  the  social  compact,  abounding  both 
in  agitating  truths,  and  specious  fallacies,  he  main 
tains  that  man  voluntarily  lays  down  his  natural 
liberty,  or  throws  it  into  the  common  stock,  to  avail 
himself  of  the  protection,  and  more  permanent  free 
dom,  of  a  Social  Body.  But  with  him,  as  not 
with  Hobbes,  the  Body  Politic  must  be  a  Demo 
cracy.  There  is  no  sovereign  but  the  people.  In 
all  his  theory,  and  with  a  heart  by  no  means 
barren  of  generous  impulses,  he  misses  that  in 
wrought  law  of  a  disinterested  social  action  and 
joy,  which,  a  divine  germ,  planted  by  God,  has 
been  perverted  and  depraved,  but  never  annihilated. 
He  forgets  the  Heavenly  Thought,  out  of  which  all 
communities  really  grow.  And,  by  his  strange  and 
unhappy  misconceptions  of  Christianity,  partly  attrib- 

*  Du  Contrat  Social,  1762.  See  also  his  "Discourse  upon  the 
Origin  and  Foundation  of  the  Inequality  among  Mankind,"  London, 
1761. 

For  the  argument  in  which  Hume  combats  the  theory  of  Locke,  see 
his  essay  on  "The  Original  Contract." 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  17 

utable,  no  doubt,  to  a  Church  that  misrepresented 
it,  he  lost  the  very  key  to  a  complete  social  order. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  maintained,  as  by  Hugo 
Grotius,  the  Dutch  contemporary  of  Ilobbes,  a  states 
man  and  a  jurist,  that  though  government  is  strictly 
human  in  its  origin,  it  is  sanctioned  by  Providence  ;* 
that  there  are  principles  of  social  justice,  which 
would  be  binding  on  men  living  together  in  a  state 
of  nature,  even  though  there  were  no  organized 
government  to  enforce  them;  that  neither  for  the 
ideas  nor  the  obligations  of  right  does  man  depend 
on  positive  institutions ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that 
there  is  a  "natural  law,  coeval  with  the  human 
constitution,  from  which  positive  institutions  derive 
all  their  force."  Seventeen  centuries  before,  the 
great  Roman  Orator  and  Philosopher,  Cicero,  had 
announced  essentially  the  same  doctrine  in  that  no 
ble  passage :  "  Right  reason  is  itself  a  law ;  conge 
nial  to  the  feelings  of  nature ;  diffused  among  all 
men;  uniform;  eternal;  calling  us  imperiously  to  our 
duty.  Nor  does  it  speak  one  language  at  Rome 
and  another  at  Athens,  varying  from  place  to  place, 
or  time  to  time ;  but  it  addresses  itself  to  all  na 
tions  and  to  all  ages,  deriving  its  authority  from 
the  Common  Sovereign  of  the  Universe  and  carry 
ing  home  its  sanctions  to  every  breast."f 

*  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis,  lib.  i.,  cap.  iv.     f  Vid.  Frag.  De  Repub.,  lib.  iii. 

2 


18  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

Montesquieu,  the  great  Frenchman,  sometimes  call 
ed,  by  a  superb  exaggeration,  the  Legislator  of  the 
Human  Family,  grasps  the  subject  with  a  stronger 
hand,  and  brings  to  it  a  richer  amplitude  of  learning. 
He  refutes  the  theory  of  Hobbes  logically,  proving 
that  the  passion  of  fear,  instead  of  causing  society, 
presupposes  the  existence  of  society.  With  a  much 
truer  insight  than  his  opponents,  he  makes  the  de 
sire  of  living  in  society  the  fourth  of  the  original 
laws  of  nature, — the  other  three  being  the  desire  of 
peace,  the  desire  of  nourishment,  and  the  mutual 
inclination  of  the  sexes.* 

Coleridgef  repeats  the  refutation  of  Montesquieu, 
and  adds  to  it  the  very  important  principle,  that 
"fear,  in  itself,  is  utterly  incapable  of  producing 
any  regular,  continuous,  and  calculable  effect,  even 
on  an  individual,"  still  less  in  organizing  a  commu 
nity.  He  ascribes  all  social  order  to  "  the  spirit 
of  law,"  as  a  natural,  inborn,  constraining  power. 

Now,  if  the  object  of  the  present  argument  were 
to  show  the  reasons  for  believing  in  the  existence 
of  God,  it  would  be  pertinent  to  investigate  these 
theories,  with  reference  to  the  indications  actually 
given,  in  the  social  state,  that  it  sprang  from  the 
mind  of  a  designer.  Assuming,  as  we  do,  the  fact 
of  a  Creator,  and  only  seeking  marks  of  his  presence 
*  I? Esprit  des  Lois.  \  In  "  The  Friend." 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  19 

and  character  in  this  particular  sphere, — society, — the 
facts  which  these  theories  generally  agree  in  recogniz 
ing  are  sufficient  for  our  purpose.  For,  they  all  go 
to  show,  that  the  moment  men  began  to  be,  they 
began  to  be  social ;  that  in  their  social  combina 
tions  they  found  utility,  welfare,  happiness ;  and 
that,  by  the  very  uniformity  of  the  attraction  which 
draws  them  together,  they  are  under  a  common 
principle  of  beneficence.  Every  Philosophy  has  to 
assent  to  the  scriptural  declaration,  that  it  was  "not 
good  for  man  to  be  alone."  Even  the  paradox  of 
Housseau,  that  a  natural  state  is  better  than  a  civ 
ilized,  will  not  contradict  this ;  for  it  is  in  a  natu 
ral  society,  not  a  natural  solitude,  that  he  finds  his 
Arcadian  bliss  and  his  golden  age.  In  the  very 
initiation,  the  origin,  of  society,  therefore,  we  see 
those  signs  of  a  Power,  and  Wisdom,  and  Goodness 
Divine,  which  afterwards  unroll  and  expand  into 
broader  and  brighter  demonstrations. 

This,  however,  we  cannot  fail  to  notice,  in  pass 
ing;  that,  so  far  from  all  the  conveniences  of  soci 
ety  existing  by  the  express  stipulation  of  human 
beings  themselves,  another  law  starts  into  action  at 
the  very  outset, — viz.,  that  even  when  men  are 
promoting  their  own  interests,  pursuing  their  own 
plans,  bargaining  for  their  own  safety  and  aggran 
dizement,  all  the  while  they  are  unconsciously  serv- 


20     SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT. 

ing  each  other's  weal.  Each  promotes  inevitably  the 
good  of  his  neighbor.  The  first  step  in  search  of 
protection  inures  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole.  In 
the  rudest  primitive  condition,  man  does  not  move  to 
wards  his  fellow,  without  a  benignant  voice  saying 
from  heaven, — through  him, — "  Let  no  man  seek 
his  own,  but  every  man  his  neighbor's  wealth.  For 
no  man  liveth  to  himself." 

III.  Thirdly,  let  us  advance  from  the  origin  of 
society  to  its  development,  watching  at  each  step  for 
the  impress  of  the  Maker. 

Properly,  this  branch  of  the  subject  reaches  back 
not  only  to  the  first  appearance  of  mankind  on  the 
planet,  but  beyond  that,  to  the  preparation  of  the 
globe  itself,  through  vast  cycles  of  time,  to  be  the 
theatre  of  that  development.  From  that  hour  when 
the  earth,  cradled  in  space,  swung  shapeless  and 
rayless  in  its  swaddling-bands  of  vapor,  it  was 
making  ready  for  the  family  that  now  range  its 
continents,  and  conquer  its  wildernesses,  and  sail 
its  seas,  and  put  a  girdle  about  its  circumference, 
and  rejoice  in  its  fruits.  Modern  geology  has  left 
this  no  longer  the  guess  of  a  fanciful  hypothesis ;  it 
is  the  splendid  demonstration  of  science.  Through 
all  the  successive  formations  that  have  slowly  built 
up  and  fashioned  the  outer  rind  of  the  sphere,— 
primary,  secondary,  tertiary, — plutonic,  stratified,  and 


SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT.     21 

alluvial, — from  Silurian  to  Pleistocene, — not  only  was 
the  process  steady  and  progressive  in  the  inanimate 
world  towards  just  that  state  wherein  the  race 
of  men  could  subsist,  but  by  a  marvellous  corres 
pondence,  and  through  direct  successive  acts  of  the 
Almighty's  creative  will,  the  several  divisions  of 
animals  in  their  advancing,  exhibit  a  corresponding 
uniform  ascent  and  approach  to  the  physical  appear 
ance  of  man, — invertebrates,  fishes,  reptiles,  birds, 
mammals,  man.  The  most  deep-sighted  students  of 
nature  to-day  will  tell  you,  and  prove  to  you,  that 
in  that  inconceivably  distant  past,  when  God  cre 
ated  the  first  zoophyte,  man  was  distinctly  in  his 
thought.  Cuvier,  the  most  philosophic  of  natural 
ists  up  to  his  day,  had  just  completed  his  theo 
retic  arrangement  of  what  the  exact  scale  of  a 
complete  animal  kingdom,  in  the  order  of  creation, 
should  be;  scarcely  was  it  finished,  when,  by  a 
coincidence  unmatched  in  wonder  and  beauty,  per 
haps,  by  anything  in  the  realms  of  discovery,  geol 
ogy  came,  took  up  the  solid  volume  of  the  rocks, 
turned  over  its  stony  leaves,  and  spelling  out  pa 
tiently  the  fossil  characters,  read  off  in  the  order 
of  time,  zone  by  zone,  page  by  page,  the  confir 
mation  of  the  great  zoologist's  conclusion.*  "  Fi 
nally,  last  born  of  creation,  man  appears  upon  the 
*  Save  at  ll  two  special  points,"  explained  by  Hugh  Miller. 


22     SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT. 

scene,  in  his  several  races  and  varieties ;  the  sub 
lime  arch  of  animal  being  at  length  receives  its 
key-stone ;  and  the  finished  work  stands  up  com 
plete  from  foundation  to  pinnacle,  at  once  an  ad 
mirably  adjusted  occupant  of  space,  and  a  wondrous 
monument  of  Divine  classification  as  it  exists  in 
time/' 

"  From  harmony,  from  heavenly  harmony, 
This  universal  frame  began  ; 
From  harmony  to  harmony, 
Through  all  the  compass  of  the  notes  it  ran 
The  diapason  closing  full  in  man." 

And  not  only  is  the  pre-Adainite  creation  thus  pro 
phetic  of  the  individual  man, — all  the  old  types  of 
life  met  and  fulfilled  in  him ;  not  only  is  the  sin 
gle  human  brain  so  "  built  up  as  to  assume,  in 
turn,  the  form  of  the  brain  of  a  fish,  reptile,  bird, 
mammiferous  quadruped,  till  it  takes  the  unique 
character  of  a  brain  that  is  human;"  not  only,  as 
Oken  said,  is  the  unit,  man,  thus  "the  sum  total 
of  all  the  animals ;"  but  of  man  social,  also,  a  simi 
lar  prediction  is  likewise  shadowed  forth.  For,  as 
Coleridge  so  beautifully  asks,  "  Who  that  watched 
their  ways  with  an  understanding  heart  could  con 
template  the  filial  and  loyal  bee,  the  home-building, 
wedded,  and  divorceless  swallow,  and  above  all  the 
manifoldly  intelligent  ant  tribes,  with  their  common- 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE      APPOINTMENT.  23 

wealths  aud  confederacies,  their  warriors  and  miners, 
the  husband  folk  that  fold  in  their  tiny  flocks  on  the 
honey  leaf,  and  the  virgin  sister  with  the  holy  in 
stincts  of  maternal  love  detached  and  in  self-less 
purity,  and  not  say  in  himself,  behold  the  shadow 
of  approaching  humanity,  the  sun  rising  from  be 
hind  in  the  kindling  morn  of  creation?" 

So  it  appears,  when  interpreters  of  sufficient  in 
sight  have  come  to  decipher  them,  that  from  the 
very  dawn  of  time,  harbingers  of  human  society 
inhabited  the  scene  of  its  manifestations ;  that  the 
race  itself,  no  less  than  the  supreme  fact  of  all  its 
history,  the  Redemption,  began  outwardly  to  be 
set  in  order  then,  in  the  very  frame  of  things ; 
and  that  the  inarticulate  signs  of  nature  echo  the 
supernatural  Word,  in  preparing  the  way  of  the 
"Lamb  that  is  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the 
worldr 

Pass  next  to  the  physical  materials  of  this  same 
scene  of  social  development,  and  see  how,  at  the 
hour  of  its  beginning,  these  all  afforded  facilities 
for  the  experiment.  Social  man,  for  instance,  would 
want  shelter;  and  the  wood  and  the  stone  and  the 
other  architectural  conditions  were  there.  lie  want 
ed  implements ;  and  Tubal  Cain,  smiter  of  brass  and 
iron,  found  metals  and  ores  for  his  use,  and  Jubal 
became  "the  father  of  all  such  as  handle  the  harp 


24     SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT. 

and  pipe/'  —  instruments  of  social  festivity.  He 
wanted  clothing,  and  found  fleeces,  skins,  and  the 
materials  of  vegetable  fabrics.  He  wanted  to  trans 
port  his  chattels  from  one  settlement  to  another,  and 
beasts  of  burden  knelt  to  take  their  load,  and  fol 
lowed  his  call.  His  wandering  flocks  made  him  a 
nomad  ;  he  wanted  temporary  dwellings  that  he 
could  strike  and  bear  forward ;  and  the  hides  of 
beasts  and  platted  and  woven  textures  were  his 
tents.  The  whole  material  structure  God  had  ar 
ranged  into  facilities  for  giving,  not  the  hermit  a 
cave,  not  the  recluse  a  cell,  not  the  anchorite  a 
den, — but  society  a  home. 

Or,  turn  to  the  diversities  of  the  surface  of  the 
globe;  its  varieties  of  territorial  form,  inequalities  of 
elevation,  of  climate,  of  productions,  intermixture  of 
water  and  land.  "  The  Empire  of  Climate,"  says 
Montesquieu,  "is  the  first,  the  most  powerful  of  all 
empires."  What  plan  has  the  Creator  written  there, 
for  society?  Is  it  not  a  clear  design  of  social  stimu 
lus  and  energy,  of  dispersion  modified  by  local  attach 
ment,  of  constant  migration  and  colonization  balanced 
by  the  tenacity  of  domestic  habit, — the  very  state 
most  favorable  to  the  swiftest  and  widest  social  devel 
opment  ?  "  The  continents  are  made  for  human  so 
cieties,  as  the  body  is  made  for  the  soul."* 

*  Professor  Guyot. 


SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT.     25 

Take  the  earliest  age  for  an  example.  As  the 
Patriarchal  families,  urged  by  necessity,  swarmed 
and  spread,  they  would  strike,  even  in  the  same 
continent,  upon  new  resources  in  the  soil,  new  pro 
vocatives  to  enterprise,  new  pursuits  for  wealth, 
new  motives  to  industrial  competition.  As  a  recent 
writer*  suggests,  "  If  the  physical  geography  of 
Western  Asia  resembled  then  what  we  know  it  to 
be  now,  almost  every  remove  of  the  tribes  would 
exhibit  fresh  variety."  Inland  exchanges  would 
spring  up.  Healthy  adventures  would  harden  the 
muscle,  and  expand  the  mind,  and  enrich  the  blood. 
"The  corn  and  timber  of  the  terrace-regions  would 
be  bartered  for  the  products  of  the  'land  of  Havi- 
lah,  where  there  is  gold,  and  bdellium,  and  the 
onyx  stone ; '  the  delicious  fruits  and  fragrant  balms 
of  the  lowlands  for  the  rock-salt  of  Anatolia;  and 
horses  from  the  house  of  Togarmahf  for  the  herds 
fed  on  the  table  lands  of  Iran."  The  twenty- 
seventh  chapter  of  Ezekiel's  prophecy  is  a  graphic 
inventory  of  this  oriental  traffic  as  it  had  extended 
in  his  day. 

In  later  centuries,  on  broader  regions,  the  same 
geographic  education  of  society  went  on.  Provi 
dence  was  still  the  Teacher.  On  the  uplands  north- 

*  Harris  in  "  Patriarchy." 

f  Ezekiel's  name  for  Armenia. 


26  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

ward,  the  hunter  chased  his  game.  From  the  plains 
of  Scythia,  suited  to  pastoral  emigration,  the  roving 
pilgrims  traversed  the  districts  of  the  East,  and  de 
nied  through  the  isthmus  of  Suez.  The  alluvial 
bottoms  of  the  Nile  installed  a  permanent  agricul 
ture.  Then,  as  the  expanding  enterprise  of  society 
required  it,  the  Mediterranean  offered  its  tranquil  bo 
som  as  a  highway  to  the  explorer  and  the  merchant. 
Indeed,  perhaps  no  single  instance  of  a  geographic 
adaptation  is  more  striking,  than  that  the  nascent 
skill  and  power  of  the  Human  Hace  should  have 
struck,  just  as  they  did,  on  that  water  of  magnificent 
memories,  witness  of  the  solemn  fate  of  empires,  re 
flecting  in  its  placid  face  the  loveliest  scenery  of 
nature  and  the  proudest  monuments  of  art,  washing 
twenty-five  hundred  miles  of  classic  coast,  bewailing 
with  its  storms  such  tragedies  of  nations  and  courts ! 
Admitting  its  tideless  waves  by  the  pillars  of  Her 
cules,  for  a  rude  and  timorous,  yet  persistent,  navi 
gation,  it  exchanged  camels  for  fleets,  ships  of  the 
desert  for  ships  of  the  sea,  till,  in  the  days  of 
Aristotle,  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  mar 
itime  cities  dotted  its  shores.  Acting  itself  by  the 
same  twofold  law  that  evermore  governs  the  true 
growth  of  communities,  like  the  centripetal  and  cen 
trifugal  forces  in  nature,  it  at  once  scattered*  men 

*  "  Oceano  dissociabili." — Hor.,  b.  i.,  c.  3. 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  27 

abroad,  and  bound  them  together; — scattered  them 
by  its  facilities  of  travel ;  bound  them  by  its  facil 
ities  of  trade.  Then,  as  they  pushed  away  from 
the  sea,  rivers  dispersed  them  along  their  winding 
channels;  hills  proved  and  quickened  their  hardi 
hood;  forests  invited  and  disciplined  their  strength. 
A  formidable  rampart  of  European  mountains  kept 
the  brave  sons  of  the  North  in  their  German  woods 
till  Providence  had  ripened  the  time  for  their  rough 
wedlock  with  the  softer  sinews  of  the  South.  An 
ocean  held  America  in  reserve  till  the  old  world 
needed  the  new  and  commerce  was  equal  to  the 
Atlantic.  Throughout,  the  features  of  the  earth 
served  the  social  tuition  of  men.  And  every  moral 
peculiarity  thus  developed,  here  or  there,  by  visible 
nature,  would  gradually  modify,  through  mutual  in 
tercourse,  all  the  members  of  the  social  family.* 

Furthermore,  and  still  keeping  your  place  in  the 
material  or  physical  world  rather  than  the  interior 
or  world  of  ideas,  but  yet  coming  in  closer  and 

*  See  Niebuhr's  Lectures  on  "Ancient  Ethnography  and  Geogra- 

Pl'.v." 

"  Undoubtedly,  the  relation  of  man  and  nature  is  not  a  relation  of 
effect  to  cause,  but  man  and  nature  are  the  great  effects  which,  com 
ing  from  the  same  cause,  bear  the  same  characters ;  so  that  the  earth 
and  he  who  inhabits  it,  man  and  nature,  are  in  perfect  harmony." — 
COUSIN'S  History  of  Philosophy,  sect,  viii.,  second  series. 

Napoleon  deduced  the  whole  history  of  Italy  from  the  Italian  terrri- 
tory. 


28  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

closer  to  that,  read  the  design  of  our  social  educa 
tion  and  development  in  the  Human  Body.  What 
geography  is  to  the  spirit  of  history,  this  corpo 
real  organization,  this  fleshly  microcosm,  is  to  the 
spirit  of  individual  man.  It  is  the  link  of  a  visi 
ble  connection  between  the  individual  soul  and  the 
external  world,  between  the  personal  solitude  and 
the  great  universe  abroad.  Notice,  then,  how  ad 
mirably  the  body  is  contrived  for  a  medium  of  so 
cial  communication,  a  vehicle  of  commerce  in  thoughts 
and  feelings,  between  man  and  man.  Indeed,  to 
such  a  degree  is  this  destination  written  out  on 
our  frame,  that,  but  for  the  relationships  and  inter 
changes  of  society,  we  could  not  guess  why  it  is 
fashioned  and  furnished  as  it  is.  To  a  large  ex 
tent,  it  would  be  a  machine  without  a  purpose,  a 
watch  without  a  spring,  an  engine  without  the  fire, 
an  exquisite  electric  apparatus  without  the  glowing 
current  that  runs  and  leaps  and  sparkles  in  its 
appointed  lines.  Examine,  in  detail,  its  conforma 
tion,  its  whole,  its  parts,  its  limbs  and  motor-forces, 
its  nerves  and  senses,  its  fibre  and  functions,  its 
sensitive  receptiveness,  its  quickness  to  all  impres 
sion,  its  beautiful  balance  of  passive  and  active  capa 
bilities,  its  forth-putting  energy,  its  power  of  positive 
achievement,  and  see  how  expressly  it  is  designed 
for  both  giving  and  taking,  in  a  reciprocal,  social 


SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT.    29 

existence.  Its  hands  are  the  pliant,  flexile  agents 
whereby,  in  ten  thousand  graceful,  noble,  helpful 
offices,  heart  and  will  in  one  man  minister  to  heart 
and  will  in  another,  -  -  factors,  scribes,  executors, 
porters,  artizans ; — their  friendly  grasp,  at  meeting, 
the  very  symbol  and  firm  pledge  how  each  is 
bound  to  each.  Its  feet  are  the  obedient  servants 
and  steady  carriers  by  which  kindred,  neighbors, 
pilgrims,  maintain  their  mutual  connections,  sped  by 
friendship,  made  nimble  by  charity.  Its  eyes  are 
not  only  informers  and  mirrors  for  the  heads  they 
shine  in ;  they  are  the  subtle  and  swift  conveyers 
and  publishers  of  every  varying  light  and  shade  of 
passion, — their  silent,  unconscious,  but  effectual  de 
clarations  revealing  many  a  sad  or  mirthful,  awful 
or  glorious  secret, — pleading,  kindling,  chilling,  tempt 
ing,  subduing,  inspiring.  Nay,  that  throbbing  cen 
tral  muscle,  the  heart  itself, — that  which  is  the 
essential,  vital  organ  of  each  individual  economy, — 
does  not  the  common  figure  of  language  make  it 
the  special  seat  and  organ  of  those  affections  which 
join  individuals  to  one  another,  and  thus,  not  an  or 
gan  only,  but  the  one  great  organizer  of  the  world  ? 
Select  from  among  the  corporeal  faculties  only 
two,  for  a  more  complete  illustration  of  the  social 
significance  interwoven  in  the  body; — the  expression 
of  the  human  face,  and  the  articulation  of  speech. 


30  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

More  than  we  are  apt  to  remember,  the  human 
face  implies  society,  because  it  is  so  facile  and  effi 
cient  as  a  means  of  inter-communication.  It  is  a 
proclamation  of  sentiments,  which  the  shrewdest  and 
ablest  facial  dissimulators  can  never  wholly  manage. 
Napoleon,  having  much  to  keep  back  from  other 
men,  and  knowing  the  danger  of  betraying  his  emo 
tions,  drilled  his  features  as  systematically  as  his 
battalions,  and  they  tell  us  of  his  power  of  instan 
taneously  discharging  his  countenance  of  all  expres 
sion.  But  this  diplomacy  of  the  face  sometimes 
failed  him  as  disastrously  as  the  tactics  of  his 
troops  at  Waterloo.  With  all  people,  the  counte 
nance  is  a  basis  of  confidence  or  suspicion,  love  or 
hate,  approach  or  reserve.  If  we  were  made  for 
Robinson  Crusoes,  every  man  to  his  solitary  island, 
the  face  would  not  have  been  made  as  it  is.  It 
is  the  exhibition-room  of  the  emotions.  It  is  the 
parade-ground  of  the  mind's  styles  and  uniforms. 
It  is  the  unguarded  rendezvous  of  all  the  bodi 
less  couriers  of  brain  and  breast.  Or,  as  has  been 
said,  "  The  countenance  is  the  painted  stage  and 
natural  robing-room  of  the  soul.  It  is  no  single 
dress,  but  wardrobes  of  costumes  innumerable.  Our 
seven  ages  have  their  liveries  there,  of  every  dye 
and  cut,  from  the  cradle  to  the  bier ;  ruddy  cheeks, 
merry  dimples,  and  plump  stuffing  for  youth ;  line 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  31 

and  furrow  for  many-thought  ed  age ;  carnation  for 
the  bridal  morning,  and  heavenlier  paleness  for  the 
new-found  mother.  All  the  legions  of  desires  and 
hopes  have  badges  there  at  hand.  It  is  the  loom 
where  the  inner  man  weaves,  on  the  instant,  the 
garment  of  his  mood,  to  dissolve  again  into  cur 
rent  life  when  the  hour  is  past.  There  it  is  that 
love  puts  on  its  celestial  rosy  red ;  there  lovely 
shame  blushes  and  mean  shame  looks  earthy ;  there 
hatred  contracts  its  wicked  white ;  there  jealousy 
picks  from  its  own  drawer  its  bodice  of  settled 
green;  there  anger  clothes  itself  in  black,  and  de 
spair  in  the  grayness  of  the  dead;  there  hypocrisy 
plunders  the  rest,  and  takes  all  their  dresses  by 
turns ;  sorrow  and  penitence,  too,  have  sackcloth 
there ;  and  genius  and  inspiration,  in  immortal  hours, 
encinctured  there  with  the  unsought  halo,  stand  forth 
in  the  supremacy  of  light."* 

The  other  great  corporeal  evidence  that  man  is 
made  for  society,  as  well  as  society  for  him,  is 
found  in  language,  and  especially  language  as  uttered 
through  the  voice.  It  is  a  striking  symbol  of  the 
socially  reconciling  character  of  our  religion,  that  it 
was  inaugurated  by  a  Gift  of  Tongues. f  If  the  si- 

*  James  Garth  Wilkinson. 

f  "  Poena  linguarum  dispersit  homines,  donum  linguanim  dispersos 
in  unum  populum  collegit." — GROTIUS. 


32          SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

lent  face  is  expressive,  much  more  is  that  one  spe 
cific  organ  of  expression,  speech.  The  first  articu 
late  sound  the  infant  breathes  is  a  prophecy  of 
society,  a  promise  of  his  own  development  into 
social  forms  of  life.  In  that  complex  and  intricate 
little  trumpet,  the  human  larynx,  so  delicately 
wrought,  so  majestic  in  the  compass  and  variations 
of  its  resonance,  with  its  minute  ligaments  and  car- 
tileges,  its  fine  muscles  and  soft  secretions,  God  has 
seated  a  token  that  man  was  not  intended  for  a  her 
mit, — whether  you  regard  the  faint  and  early  cry  by 
which  the  listening  mother  knows  and  rejoices  that 
her  child  is  not  born  dumb,  or  the  seraphic  melody 
when  the  Swedish  singer  and  saint,  blending  the 
words  of  immortal  faith  with  the  music  of 

"  The  lark  at  heaven's  gate  singing," 

enchants  two  hemispheres,  and  gives  new  reality,  in 
every  believing  breast,  to  the  everlasting  assurance, 
"I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth."  For,  as  another 
has  eloquently  asked  and  answered,*  "  How  does  the 
unseen  and  spiritual  nature  act  upon  surrounding 
fellow-men,  on  kindred  minds  ?  It  manifests  itself, 
it  enters  into  communion  with  kindred  mind,  chiefly 
by  the  agency  of  articulate  speech;  by  the  twofold 
interchangeable  mystery  of  intelligible  signs — the 

*  Edward  Everett. 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE      APPOINTMENT.  33 

one  a  few  black  marks  addressed  to  the  eye,  the 
other  delicate  vocal  undulations  of  the  elastic  air 
addressed  to  the  ear.  To  give  the  spoken  word  du 
ration,  I  translate  it  into  written  character; — to  give 
the  written  sign  a  vital  emphasis,  I  translate  it  in 
to  vocal  speech.  By  one  divine  art,  the  dead  let 
ter,  charged  with  a  living  meaning,  sounds  through 
echoing  halls,  and  wins  or  storms  its  way  to  sym 
pathetic  hearts ;  by  another,  the  fleeting  wavelets  of 
the  air  are  crystallized  into  a  most  marvellous  per 
manence,  and  become  imperishable  gems  of  thought, 
whose  lustre  no  lapse  of  time  can  obscure ;  while, 
by  the  union  of  both,  this  incomprehensible  being, 
the  mind,  gently  wooed  from  the  vestal  chambers 
of  our  inmost  nature,  comes  forth  like  a  bride 
adorned  for  her  lordly  spouse,  the  word ;  clad  in 
the  rich  vesture  of  conversation,  of  argument,  of 
eloquence,  of  poetry,  of  song;  to  walk  with  him 
the  busy  or  secluded  paths  of  life ;  to  instruct  and 
delight  the  living  generations  : — ethereal  essences  as 
they  are,  to  outlive  columns  of  brass  and  pyramids 
of  granite,  and  to  descend,  in  eternal  youth,  the 
unending  highways  of  the  ages." 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Divine  preparation  of  the 
world  for  the  development  upon  it  of  man's  social 
propensities, — of  its  geographical  distributions  as  the 
scene  of  that  development, — of  the  human  body,  as 


34  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

having,  notwithstanding  it  is  the  peculiar  property  and 
dwelling  place  of  the  individual,  marvellous  adapta 
tions  to  the  same  end.  To  enter,  here,  into  the  sig 
nal  proofs  of  this  purpose  of  God,  as  displayed  in  the 
constitution  of  the  interior  nature, — the  intellect  and 
the  heart, — would  be  to  anticipate  topics  distinctly 
awaiting  us  at  future  occasions.  Let  us  glance 
briefly,  however,  at  the  traces  of  this  appointment 
discoverable  in  the  obvious  aspects  and  forms  under 
which  the  social  spirit  has  been  embodied. 

The  great  whole  that  we  call  Society  has  been 
arranged,  by  the  Creator,  in  a  system  of  concentric 
circles.  The  first  and  smallest  social  type  is  the 
Family.  Its  primary  constituents  are  a  man  and 
a  woman, — then  parents  and  children, — sometimes 
including,  in  a  complete  patriarchate,  all  the  de 
scendants  of  the  same  living  progenitor.  The  second 
and  next  larger  is  the  Tribe,  a  group  of  families. 
The  third  is  the  State,  varying  greatly  in  extent, 
sometimes  comprised  in  a  single  city,  like  the  State 
of  Athens,  which,  with  all  its  splendor,  power  and 
fame,  contained  only  four  hundred  thousand  inhab 
itants,  about  two-thirds  as  many  as  the  city  of 
New  York;  like  the  modern  Italian  republics,  Yen- 
ice,  Florence,  Genoa;  but  sometimes  also  embracing 
vast  territories  and  populations.  Fourth  is  the  Na 
tion,  a  larger  collection,  determined  by  a  common 


SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT.     35 

origin,  a  common  language,  and  contiguous  lands, 
often  including  several  political  organizations ;  as 
Athens,  Sparta,  Thebes,  were  all  included  in  the 
Greek  or  Hellenic  nation.  Fifth,  and  last,  is  the 
Empire,  a  mightier  power,  a  cluster  of  nations,  a 
ganglion  of  cities  and  provinces,  and,  as  the  case 
may  be,  a  heterogeneous  combination  of  different 
races  even,  under  one  civil  sway,  but  growing  out 
of  no  one  principle  of  life :  artificially  grappled  to 
gether  by  military  conquest,  by  personal  ambition,  by 
the  intermarriage  of  royal  families,  rarely  keeping 
their  bulky  and  unwieldy  proportions  very  long,  but 
stretching  out  till  they  break  asunder  by  their  own 
weight  : — as  the  Assyrian,  the  Roman,  the  Russian, 
the  British,  Empires. 

At  the  centre  of  any  or  all  of  these  widening  cir 
cles  stands  an  individual  man,  having  his  social  na 
ture,  waiting  for  alliance  with  his  kind;  responsible, 
affectional,  but  fragmentary  and  unfinished  till  he 
finds  his  fellows, — holding  his  place  there  directly 
from  God  above  him,  as  each  member  of  the  solar 
system  holds  from  the  sun  and  yet  balances  the  rest 
of  the  members.  It  is  not  a  single  solar  system, 
but  many, — the  whole  also  heliocentric, — God  the 
central  and  supreme  Sun  of  all,  not  only  an  at 
tracting  Law,  not  only  an  irradiating  Light,  but  a 
conscious  Spirit  of  Life  and  a  Personal  Protector. 


36  SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT. 

Towards  each  of  these  groups  he  has  a  character 
and  a  name, — Father  of  the  families  of  the  earth, 
Leader  of  the  tribes,  Lord  of  the  states,  King  of 
the  nations,  Sovereign  of  the  empires. 

Each  of  these  social  types  has  its  own  political 
style,  or  form  of  government, — the  patriarchy,  the 
chieftainship ;  the  democratic,  aristocratic,  royal,  im 
perial.  But  society  itself  is,  in  a  sense,  indepen 
dent  of  all  these  forms.  It  went  before  their  begin 
nings.  It  survives  their  revolutions.  It  sees  them 
dashed  to  pieces,  and  tossed  together,  reconstructed, 
or  buried,  and  yet  itself  lives  on,  for  God  is  with 
it,  and  has  uses  for  it.  Its  polities  may  change, 
and  wither;  but  by  principles  God  has  wrought  into 
its  being,  its  own  steady  growth  goes  on. 

Throughout  all  the  departments  of  knowledge,  in 
our  day,  a  careful  attention  cannot  fail  to  discover  a 
universal  tendency  to  generalization  and  unity — to 
bring  the  various  operations  of  matter  and  of  mind 
under  a  few  grand  and  simple  laws, — to  detect  the 
working  of  identical  principles  of  growth  or  formation, 
of  development  and  action,  in  all  kingdoms  and  prov 
inces  of  nature.  Where  before  seemed  disconnected 
phenomena,  scholars  now  find  interior  relations  and 
correspondences, — ever  discovering  new  species,  but 
ever  reducing  also  the  number  of  primal  forces. 


SOCIETY     A     DIVINE     APPOINTMENT.  37 

Where  before  was  confusion,  there  is  order.  Where 
before  was  complication,  there  is  simplicity.  Where 
before  was  utter  diversity,  there  is  unity.  So  that 
the  question  even  arises,  whether  there  may  not  be 
reached,  at  last,  one  sublime  and  all-comprehending 
unity,  connecting  all  sciences  themselves  by  some 
single  law,  and  in  a  concord  of  philosophy  and 
faith,  making  them  all  one,  even  as  all  must  be 
one  in  the  mind  of  God.  Very  certainly,  this 
holds  good  of  that  part  of  the  great  creation  now 
before  us.  Society  is  one  fact,  springing  from  one 
purpose,  having  one  mighty,  common  life  at  its 
heart.  Glance  over  all  its  divisions  and  differences,  of 
race,  tradition,  custom,  dress,  tongue,  color,  culture. 
No  matter  how  unlike  the  phases,  no  matter  how 
many  the  functions,  no  matter  how  various  the  con 
ditions.  Underneath  all  these  is  one  great  Social 
Law  and  Life,  subsisting  in  the  Father's  Spirit. 
We  are  told,  in  Natural  History,  of  whole  forests 
springing  from  a  single  root.  Humanity  itself  is 
such  a  manifold  growth  in  affiliated  parts.  The 
old  Northmen's  fable  of  the  universal  Tree  whose 
divine  sap  is  the  creative  energy,  was  not  so  far 
from  the  true  cosmogony,  or  doctrine  of  creation,  as 
those  baptized  creeds  which  locate  their  Deity  afar 
from  his  creatures  in  space,  or  before  the  Flood  in 
time.  The  throbbing  hearts  that  warm  the  world 


38     SOCIETY  A  DIVINE  APPOINTMENT. 

are  only  pulses  from  one  central  Heart  of  Everlast 
ing,  Infinite  Love.  And  whether  modern  students 
should  conclude  that  the  scriptural  ethnology  is  lit 
eral,  or  only  representative, — that  all  mankind  are 
the  descendants  of  a  single  pair  in  Eden,  or  that 
the  Sacred  Record  of  the  earlier  age  only  traces 
one  of  several  local  groups  planted  by  the  one  God 
in  different  climates  of  the  globe,  still  it  would  re 
main  profoundly  true,  that  "He  hath  made  of  ONE 
BLOOD  all  the  nations  of  the  earth." 


LECTURE    II. 

SOCIETY   A   LIVING   INSTRUMENT   OP   DIVINE    THOUGHT. 

LET  us  keep  distinctly  before  us  the  main  out 
line  of  the  argument.  1.  To  prove  that  anything 
manifests  the  character  of  the  Christian's  God,  we 
have  to  prove  that,  by  the  free  working  of  its  own 
nature,  it  tends  to  good,  —  good  as  we  apprehend 
good  by  the  threefold  method  of  insight,  revelation, 
and  experience  or  history.  2.  In  the  sphere  of  hu 
man  life,  the  first  good  is  character, — character  in  its 
best  developement  as  respects  quality,  quantity,  and 
symmetry ;  or,  to  take  a  classification  that  squares 
more  exactly  with  the  terms  of  our  general  subject, 
and  yet  answers  to  the  others,  term  for  term,  as 
respects  mans  goodness,  power  and  wisdom.  The 
proposition  will  then  stand  thus  : — If  Human  Society 
tends,  on  the  whole,  to  unfold  and  multiply  good 
ness,  power,  and  wisdom  in  man,  who  is  God's 
creature,  then  it  may  be  held  a  Divine  Workman 
ship.  Its  structure,  relations,  functions,  are  so  many 
manifestations  of  power,  and  wisdom,  and  goodness 
in  God,  the  Creator.  The  first  step  toward  such 


40  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

a  demonstration  will  be,  as  was  attempted  in  the 
preceding  lecture,  to  show  that  in  its  purpose,  its 
preparation  and  growth,  and  its  principal  normal 
forms,  Society  exhibits  traces  of  a  plan,  on  such  a 
scale  of  magnificence  and  compass,  that  no  mind, 
short  of  the  Almighty's,  could  conceive  and  exe 
cute  it. 

The  next  step  will  be  to  represent  the  social 
state  as  a  practical  embodiment,  in  active  operation, 
of  certain  ideas  which,  from  all  that  we  know  of 
God,  from  any  source,  may  fairly  be  pronounced 
ideas  of  God.  One  leading  principle,  the  same  that 
reigns  throughout  all  the  departments  of  animated 
nature  known  to  science  thus  far,  must  be  carefully 
noted  as  pervading  the  whole  process, — and  we  may 
call  it  the  first  of  these  Divine  ideas ;  this,  viz., 
that  with  the  progress,  or  elevation  of  the  spe 
cies  is  ever  associated  a  twofold  result ;  —  an  in 
creased  variety  of  individual  organization,  with  a 
more  visible  unity  of  the  whole.  In  other  words, 
Society  tends  constantly  to  produce  a  higher  order 
of  men  and  women,  exhibiting  a  larger  variety  of 
persons,  yet  balanced  and  reconciled  in  a  more 
perfect  mutual  harmony. 

It  may  be  asked,  however,  just  here,  When  you 
claim  that  Society  is  a  scene  of  Divine  disclosures 
and  forces,  what  kind  of  society  do  you  mean? 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  41 

It  is  a  compound  of  many  sorts.  Do  you  mean 
savage  society,  or  civilized, — the  Bushmen  of  South 
Africa,  or  the  polite  circles  of  London, — the  fron 
tier  or  the  capital, — pastoral  tribes  or  centralizing 
cities  ?  And  especially,  do  you  mean  a  society  of 
Pagans,  or  a  society  whose  civilization  is  built  on 
the  Faith,  and  walks  in  the  light,  of  the  Gospel 
of  Christ? 

The  reply  is,  we  consider  Society  as  to  all  its 
capacities  and  powers,  including  the  highest  and 
best.  By  all  means,  we  must  include,  in  our  con 
ception,  those  forms  and  conditions  of  its  develope- 
ment  which  appertain  to  its  foremost  advancements 
thus  far.  Because  these  belong  to  the  true  social 
type.  It  would  be  both  an  irreverent  and  an  un 
scientific  treatment  of  the  theme,  to  confine  ourselves 
to  the  lowest  specimens.  When  the  naturalist  would 
investigate  the  turtle,  he  does  not  stop  with  dis 
secting  the  coarsest  kinds, — the  marine  varieties  of 
turtle,  the  loggerhead  or  the  leatherback.  Every 
class  must  be  regarded  as  embracing  its  finest 
known  individual.  When  philosophy  contemplates 
man,  it  does  not  mean  the  wild  man  of  the  woods, 
the  troglodyte,  the  barbarian ;  it  does  not  mean  the 
stupid  Asiatic  majority ;  it  does  not  mean  Caspar 
Hauser,  nor  the  Aztec  children;  but  man  in  his  best 
circumstances  hitherto  —  where  all  his  powers  have 


42  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

the  freest  play,  his  faculties  their  normal  exercise, 
and  where  he  has  shown  the  best  that  is  in  him : 
simply  because  all  the  parts  are  necessary  to  the 
whole,  —  which  whole  is,  in  this  case,  the  realized 
idea  of  humanity.  When  we  speak  of  Rome,  even 
if  we  credit  the  fable,  we  do  not  mean  a  wolf  and  a 
pair  of  twins,  but  what  Home  became  in  the  days 
of  Augustus.  By  New  York,  we  do  not  understand 
a  Dutch  settlement  of  a  dozen  cabins,  but  the  New 
York  that  has  in  it  a  University,  Wall  Street,  Trin 
ity  Church,  the  Cooper  Institute;  and  not  only  the 
Five  Points,  but  the  Five  Points  Mission  too.  If 
we  say  the  American  People,  we  must  take  in  not 
only  the  bloody  and  bruised  bodies  of  prize-fighters, 
and  the  brutalized  rabble  that  with  equal  barbarity 
look  on  to  see  these  lumps  of  muscle  battered  and 
borne  off  on  beds  from  a  scene  which  might  have 
been  imported  from  the  playgrounds  of  the  infernals, 
but  we  must  go  up  also  to  the  extreme  of  our  gene 
ration  nearer  heaven ;  we  must  include  our  saints, 
and  heroes,  and  sages, — our  Judson,  and  Tuckerman, 
and  Dorothy  Dix, — our  Kane,  and  Herndon,  and 
Tyng, — our  Bowditch,  and  Prescott,  and  Jay. 

And  so  to  analyze  and  exhibit  Society  as  a 
fruit  of  God's  designs,  our  argument  does  not 
merely  go  back  to  the  men  and  women  of  caves 
and  dens,  dressed  in  untanned  skins  of  beasts, 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  43 

and  eating  with  their  fingers,  but  embraces  the  best 
culture  and  achievements  of  both  hemispheres. 

Again,  and  as  a  part  of  the  same  query,  it  is 
asked,  Do  we  not  here  attribute  to  Society,  in  its 
own  peculiar  and  self-contained  elements,  qualities 
which  it  derives  from  a  source  beyond  itself,  viz., 
from  religion  ?  Are  we  not  fallaciously  finding  in 
a  human  institution,  and  as  its  own  natural  prop 
erty,  what  it  possesses  only  by  virtue  of  the  gifts 
of  Christian  Revelation  ? 

I  answer,  Human  Society  is  no  less  an  illustra 
tion  of  God's  character  and  purposes,  and  therefore 
no  less  legitimate  and  logical  for  my  uses  here, 
because  God  himself  has  seen  fit  to  inspire  and 
enlighten  it  with  his  own  Spirit,  through  his  own 
Messiah.  I  say  again,  Society  is  presented  as  it 
is,  in  its  best  manifestations,  with  all  the  influences 
acting  upon  it,  with  all  the  educating  forces  and 
ennobling  ideas  planted  in  it.  Of  these  educating 
forces  and  ennobling  ideas  we  may  regard  Christian 
ity  as  one,  and  the  chief.  Christianity  is  capable  of 
being  considered  either  as  a  disclosure  and  commu 
nication  of  God,  or  as  a  formative  power  in  man. 
In  the  latter  character,  a  Religion  is  just  as  ne 
cessary  to  any  proper  conception  of  man's  social 
state,  as  intelligence,  or  natural  affection.  For  man, 
and  social  man,  is  a  religious  creature.  That  is,  he 


44  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

is  created  with  susceptibilities  to  religious  impres 
sion,  capacities  for  religious  truths.  He  is  intended 
for  worship  and  faith.  He  cannot  fulfil  his  destiny, 
cannot  be  the  being  his  Maker  designed  him  to  be, 
without  religion.  And  Christianity  is  the  perfect 
form  of  religion, — love  of  God,  and  love  of  man; 
able,  therefore,  to  produce  the  highest  style  of  man, 
i.  e.y  the  Christian.  It  is  in  this  shape  only,  that 
it  is  lawful  for  my  present  argument  to  know 
Christianity.  But  to  attempt  to  discuss  or  examine 
Society,  as  a  fact,  leaving  out  religion,  would  be 
absurd  in  theory,  and  impossible  in  performance.  I 
remark,  in  addition,  that  the  distinct  topic  of  the 
relation  of  Society  to  Christianity  has  already  been 
proposed  for  a  future  lecture. 

Taking  a  wide  observation  of  social  life,  not  in 
one  spot  or  community,  but  in  many,  not  in  one 
epoch,  but  in  the  whole  historic  period,  we  observe 
a  manifest  and  preponderating  tendency,  on  the 
whole,  to  a  more  complete  and  more  general  reali 
zation  of  the  ideas  which  Society  is  clearly  meant 
to  embody,  —  such,  especially,  as  a  fraternal  senti 
ment  between  man  and  man,  intellectual  activity,  a 
common  distribution  of  the  means  of  life,  personal 
liberty,  industry,  virtue,  religion.  Wherever  Society 
is  most  true  to  itself,  most  truly  social,  its  com 
munications  and  interchanges  being  most  unrestricted 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  45 

and  most  extensive,  there  those  ideas  are  most 
largely  unfolded  into  actions  and  institutions. 

If  we  find  these  positions  capable  of  proof  by 
the  facts,  then  we  shall  be  justified  in  predicating 
of  Society  an  inwrought  law  of  beneficent  activity, 
just  as  much  as  in  affirming  a  law  of  growth  in 
the  tree  where  the  natural  conditions  of  vegetation 
are  supplied,  just  as  much  as  in  affirming  a  law 
of  assimilation  in  chemistry  where  the  requisite 
substances  are  thrown  together. 

From  the  fact  that  the  same  social  conditions  yield 
similar  social  effects,  we  infer,  then,  that  there  are 
such  things  as  laws  of  Society,  as  there  are  laws 
of  physiology,  mechanics,  morals,  mathematics ;  only 
not  so  exact,  not  so  definable,  not  yet  classed  or  co 
ordinated  by  generalizations  so  comprehensive.*  To 

*  "  In  the  last  analysis,  history  is  nothing  less  than  the  last  counter- 
stroke  of  Divine  action.  Its  laws  have  for  their  last  principle  God 
himself.  It  is  because  Providence  is  in  humanity  and  in  history,  that 
humanity  and  history  have  their  necessary  laws.  The  judgments  of 
history  are  the  judgments  of  God  himself."  When  Cousin  proceeds, 
from  these  undeniable  maxims,  to  affirm,  in  support  of  his  unqualified 
historical  optimism,  that  every  incident  in  history  is  in  its  (providen 
tial)  place,  and  arrives  for  good,  he  only  seems  to  complicate  the 
problem  of  moral  agency  in  a  sort  of  Christian  fatalism,  to  ignore  the 
antagonistic  quality  of  sin,  and  to  confound  the  causative  with  the  cor 
rective  Providence.  Doubtless,  "  science  suppresses  every  anomaly," 
or  aims  to  ;  but  it  does  not  suppress  facts.  Sin  is  an  enormous  fact 
in  history.  It  is  the  malignant  resistance  of  the  evil  in  man  to  the 
laws  as  well  as  the  Law  of  God.  It  is  as  unscientific  as  it  is  irreligious, 
therefore,  to  interpret  history  as  altogether  justified  of  Providence. 


46  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     I  N  S  T  K  U  M  E  N  T 

trace  these  general  principles  has  been  the  work 
of  the  philosophical  historian,  in  distinction  from 
the  mere  chronicler,  annalist,  or  recorder.  The  of 
fice  of  the  latter  is  to  report  the  facts  as  they 
occur,  discrete  and  literal,  here  or  there ;  of  the 
former  to  combine,  to  compare,  to  analyze  them,  so 
as  to  bring  out  the  hidden  vinculum  that  joins 
effect  with  cause,  and,  underneath  the  shifting, 
motley  play  of  events  that  look  so  much  like  a 
dance  of  accidents,  to  detect  the  grand  streams 
of  divine  thought  working  sublimely  to  their  desti 
nation.*  It  was  some  such  general  principles, 

The  human  phenomena  there  often  contradict  the  heavenly  law,  which 
prevails  only  by  overruling,  inflicting  terrible  penalties  on  the  way. 

*  It  is  in  the  department  of  philosophical  history  that  the  mind  of 
Germany,  within  the  last  half  century,  has  rendered,  on  the  whole,  its 
grandest  service  both  to  Letters  and  to  Truth.  "The  religions  of  the 
world,  the  changes  of  government,  the  phases  of  civilization ; — the 
Germans,"  as  has  been  said,  "  have  not  been  content  to  describe  these, 
but  have  searched  for  the  law  under  which  they  have  appeared.  The 
history  of  mankind  has  not  been  handled  as  a  congeries  of  events, 
but  as  an  organic  developement.  Contrast  such  a  history  as  that  of 
Macaulay  (of  England)  with  such  a  history  as  that  of  Neander  (of 
the  Church), — both  popular  examples.  The  subject-matter  of  the 
two  works  is,  to  be  sure,  totally  different;  but  not  more  so  than  the 
methods  of  the  two  authors.  In  Macaulay,  you  have  a  glowing  de 
scription  of  the  progress  of  events,  with  brilliant  biographical  sketches, 
and  the  comments  of  an  acute,  practical  statesman.  It  is  a  stage  where 
the  curtain  rises,  and  the  scenes  shift,  according  to  the  most  consum 
mate  art.  But  when  all  is  over,  what  deep  insight  have  you  gained 
into  the  Divine  plan  of  the  world  ?  Neander,  on  the  contrary,  in  his 
own  words,  shows  us  a  process  having  its  issue  in  eternity,  but  con- 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  47 

though  vaguely  apprehended  by  him,  that  Aristotle 
proposed  to  deduce  and  make  practical  for  the 
government  of  a  State.  In  a  more  modern  time, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Gio 
vanni  Yico,  a  Neapolitan,  "  a  great  jurisconsult,"  and 
one  of  the  most  original  thinkers  in  this  depart 
ment,  in  a  work  called  "  The  Principles  of  a  New 
Science,"  developed  the  same  view  by  the  method 
of  induction.  His  doctrine  is,  that  by  observing 
the  actual  phenomena  of  social  life  in  many  differ 
ent  communities,  we  may  arrive  at  a  definite  rule 
for  determining  what  any  given  community  will  be, 
through  the  three  necessary  epochs, — the  divine,  the 
heroic,  and  the  human,  —  and  even  predict,  with 
accuracy,  the  length  of  its  existence,  and  also  the 
date  of  its  decline.*  For  Vico  fell  into  the  un 
fortunate  theory,  —  since  his  day  generally  aban 
doned, — that  the  movements  of  mankind,  instead  of 
being  on  the  whole  steadily  onward,  are  in  a  se 
ries  of  circles,  or  "recurrences,"  (ricorsi,)  Society 
perpetually  coming  round  again,  by  this  cyclical 
process,  to  the  point  from  which  it  started.  Throw- 

stantly  following  the  same  laws,  so  that  in  the  past  we  may  sec  the 
germ  of  the  future,  which  is  coming  to  meet  us." — Professor  G.  P. 
Fisher. 

*  Cousin  supposes  Vico's  work  to  have  been  "  the  model  and  per 
haps  the  source"  of  Montesquieu's  I,  Esprit  des  Lois. 


48  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

ing  out  that  fallacy,  Herder,  in  his  "  liieas  to 
wards  a  Philosophy  of  History,"  published  in  1774, 
Montesquieu,  and  Kant,  have  written  from  the  same 
sure  belief,  —  that  the  conditions  of  social  growth 
may  be  systematized,  —  the  latter  ably  maintaining 
that  all  the  social  movements  on  the  planet  are  slow 
preparations  for  one  grand  ultimate  form  of  univer 
sal  social  harmony,  a  kind  of  organized  ecumenical 
commonwealth,  where  all  the  parts  shall  be  related 
to  one  another,  and  a  central  principle  of  the  or 
ganism  animate  and  attract  the  whole.  It  may 
now  be  regarded  as  the  settled  conviction  of  the 
wisest  heads,  that  social  developements  are  subject 
to  law.  From  that  point,  to  the  conclusion  that 
this  law  has  its  seat  in  the  centre  and  source  of 
all  law,  in  the  bosom  of  God,  is  but  a  single  step, 
— and  that  step  we  take  in  obedience  to  Christian 
philosophy.  "  What  are  all  our  histories,"  well  asked 
Oliver  Cromwell,  "but  God  manifesting  himself, 
that  he  hath  shaken,  and  tumbled  down,  and  tram 
pled  under  foot  whatsoever  he  hath  not  planted  ?"* 
The  laws  of  Society,  then,  are  thoughts  of  God. 
Here,  as  through  the  universe,  the  design  has  a 
Designer.  So  we  rise  from  the  contemplation  of  a 
social  order  to  a  Divine  ordainer;  from  the  aspects 
of  regular  sequences  to  acquaintance  with  Provi- 

'*  See  Chevalier  Bimsen's  work,  still  in  progress,  Gott  in  der  Geschichte. 


OF     DIVINE      THOUGHT.  49 

dence ;  from  what  is  called  the  philosophy  of  his 
tory  to  the  fact  of  religion.  The  Family  of  men 
has  a  Parent.  Society  becomes  related  to  the 
Creator;  earth  to  heaven.  Even  ancient  heathen 
ism,  in  its  own  dark  way,  accepted  this  conclu 
sion.  Each  Pagan  people  referred  the  direction  of 
its  fortunes  to  a  Deity.  Whom  they  thus  igno- 
rantly  worshipped  Christianity  declares  to  us.  The 
altar  they  blindly  reared,  in  the  midst  of  their 
idolatries,  to  the  "  unknown  God,"  has  been  in 
scribed  with  the  name  of  the  Father  of  Christ. 
The  great  procession  of  the  ages  is  seen  as  the 
majestic  unfolding  of  the  scheme  of  Him  who  is 
without  beginning  of  days,  or  end. 

It  may  be  objected  that  there  is  too  much  un 
certainty,  in  the  whole  proceeding  of  social  life,  to 
let  us  speak  of  laws;  that  it  is  a  whirlpool  of 
happenings ;  a  carnival  of  impulses ;  a  dance  of 
chances.  But  look  into  the  analogies  of  all  busi 
ness,  and  you  see  that  in  what  we  call  chances 
themselves  there  is  a  calculable  regularity ;  over 
the  wildest  jumble  of  events,  where  every  instance 
seems  out  of  all  relation  to  the  rest,  presides  the 
firm,  majestic  sway  of  Law.  Nothing  so  precarious, 
nothing  so  random  and  whimsical,  as  not  to  be 
rated.  Only  find  out  all  the  conditions,  get  the 
data  for  a  deduction,  which  certainly  exist,  and 


50  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

you  might  anticipate  for  a  given  community,  how 
many  paupers  and  criminals  there  would  be,  how 
many  parties  in  a  season,  how  many  marriages, 
how  many  -mobs,  and  how  often  some  agony  such 
as  can  come  only  of  the  breaking  of  one  heart  by 
another  will  open  early  graves,  or  plunge  distracted 
creatures  into  the  drowning  that  is  both  death  and 
grave  together.  What  is  apparently  more  fortuitous, 
or  more  likely  to  defy  calculation,  than  self-destruc 
tion?  ~Xet  in  London  the  number  of  suicides  for  the 
next  year  can  be  prognosticated  with  such  accuracy, 
that  men  best  acquainted  with  the  subject  would 
not  hesitate  to  risk  their  property  on  the  assurance 
that  in  that  vast  metropolis,  of  eighteen  hundred 
thousand  souls,  they  will  not  number  less  than  two 
hundred  and  thirteen,  nor  more  than  two  hundred 
and  sixty-six.  There  is  very  little  doubt  that  they 
will  be  about  two  hundred  and  forty.*  We  call 
the  calamities  of  promiscuous  travel  accidents ;  yet 
in  a  series  of  years  there  is  a  well-known  average 
of  such  disasters.  Even  particular  crimes,  as  has 
been  ascertained  by  most  extensive  observations, 
bear  a  fixed  ratio  to  certain  determinable  exigencies. 
M.  Quetelet,  the  ablest  statistician  in  Europe,  de 
clares  that  not  only  the  number  of  murders,  but 

*  They  went  up  to  their  highest  mark  in  1846,  the  year  of  the  great 
pecuniary  panic  caused  by  the  bursting  of  railway  speculations. 


OF     DIVINE    THOUGHT.  51 

the  weapons  they  will  be  perpetrated  with,  can  be 
ascertained  in  advance.  All  insurance  tables  are 
based  on  this  familiar  principle.  Only  the  state 
of  knowledge  thus  far  restrains  the  assumption  of 
risks  in  those  more  volatile  and  fickle  actions  of 
moral  life  where  we  are  apt  to  expect  nothing  but 
surprises  and  disconnections.  We  should  say  scarce 
ly  anything  is  more  capricious  than  the  freaks  of 
memory  which  lead  people  to  drop  into  the  post 
office  letters  with  a  mistaken  superscription  or  none 
at  all.  But  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  pre 
dict  the  average  number  of  undirected  or  misdi 
rected  letters  in  any  city  post  office  for  any  con 
siderable  term  of  years.  Of  the  female  population 
of  a  country  it  is  found  a  certain  proportion  will 
go  about  in  men's  clothing.  The  relative  proportion 
of  the  sexes  is  exact  beyond  all  expectations  that 
would  be  raised  by  the  conjectures  that  are  ap 
plied  in  anticipation  to  the  individual  specimen. 

It  is  no  new  phenomenon  for  fallacious  attempts 
to  be  made  to  abuse  facts  by  arraying  them  against 
truth.  Facts  of  the  character  here  cited  are  no 
more  to  be  made  a  support  for  the  notions  of  ma 
terialists  or  fatalists,  than  are  the  traces  of  order 
and  law  in  the  physical  creation.  The  first  aspect 
of  a  newly  discovered  law  often  startles  us  into 
an  atheistic  suspicion ;  but  a  riper  acquaintance  with 


52  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

it  deepens  the  confession  of  our  faith.*  It  is  true, 
the  liberty,  the  sudden  self-determination,  and  the 
wild  inconsistency  of  the  human  mind,  do  greatly 
aggravate  the  difficulty  of  detecting  the  laws,  when 
we  pass  from  passive  realms  of  matter  into  the 
sphere  of  social  humanity.  But  when  they  are 
actually  found,  and  thoughtfully  studied,  they  afford 
as  clear  signs  of  the  living  God,  and  as  powerful 
an  aid  to  devotion,  in  the  latter  case  as  in  the 
former.  Nor  shall  we  find  in  the  one,  any  more 
than  in  the  other,  an  occasion  to  question  the 
presence  of  a  sovereign  and  gracious  Disposer,  be 
cause  we  catch  glimpses  of  the  occult  method  and 
the  subtle  regularities  by  which  he  limits  the  way 
wardness,  balances  the  individual  caprices,  and  gives 
uniformity  to  the  mixed  results,  of  the  responsible 
agents  whom  he  forever  controls. 

It  is  an  interesting  incident  in  literary  history, 
and  an  evidence  of  the  practical  penetration  of  a 
mind  chiefly  known  to  the  world  by  its  specula 
tive  excursions  in  the  transcendental  philosophy,  but 
before  statistical  science  had  attained  its  present 

*  The  use  or  abuse  made  of  this  law  of  average  statistics  by  Mr. 
Buckle,  in  his  recent  "  Introduction  to  a  History  of  Civilization  in 
England,"  naturally  throws  some  suspicion  upon  it.  But  its  applica 
tions,  like  those  of  the  principle  of  free  agency,  or  of  cause  and  effect, 
or  of  chemical  reactions,  are  as  capable  of  being  reconciled  with  faith 
as  with  "  Positivism." 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  53 

degree  of  maturity,  so  long  ago  as  1784,  Emanuel 
Kant,  in  an  essay  entitled  "  Idea  of  a  Universal 
History  in  a  Cosmopolitical  Point  of  View,"  wrote 
as  follows :  "  Whatever  be  the  metaphysical  concep 
tion  of  the  will,  its  phenomena,  human  actions,  are 
determined,  like  all  other  natural  events,  according 
to  universal  laws  of  nature.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  history,  when  it  contemplates  the  pla}r  of  the 
liberty  of  the  will  on  a  large  scale,  will  discover 
a  regular  course  in  it ;  so  that  what  seems  irregu 
lar  and  capricious  in  individual  cases  shall  appear, 
as  regards  the  whole  species,  as  a  continually  pro 
gressive  though  slow  unfolding  of  its  original  tenden 
cies.  Thus  marriages,  births,  and  deaths,  as  the 
free  will  of  man  has  so  great  an  influence  on 
them,  seem  to  be  subject  to  no  rule  according  to 
which  their  number  can  be  previously  determined 
by  reckoning;  and  yet  the  yearly  tables  of  them 
in  great  nations  evince  that  they  happen  just  as 
much  according  to  constant  laws  of  nature  as  the 
equally  inconstant  rains  whose  happening  cannot  be 
determined  singly,  but  which  on  the  whole  do  not 
fail  to  maintain  the  growth  of  plants,  the  flow  of 
rivers,  and  other  dispositions  of  nature,  in  a  uni 
form,  uninterrupted  succession." 

I.     The     first     fact    in    social    science    is    the    re 
ciprocal  relation   between  society  and   the  individual : 


54  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

not  now,  observe,  between  one  individual  and  an 
other  or  a  particular  number  of  others,  but  between 
each  and  that  aggregate  of  influences,  examples, 
powers,  persons,  to  which,  as  if  it  were  a  unit, 
we  give  the  one  name,  Society.  A  study  of  our 
own  interior  composition  is  enough  to  show  us  that 
by  living  alone  man  will  finally  become  unfit  to 
live  at  all,  —  dwarfing  humanity,  insulting  nature, 
and  practically  denying  God.  The  absolute  segre 
gation  of  a  single  specimen  from  his  kind  gradually 
shortens  the  scope  and  altitude  of  his  capacities, 
and  distorts  his  symmetry.  Occasional  solitude  has 
an  unspeakable  moral  value.  Perhaps  the  loftiest 
moods  are  fed  from  the  fountains  that  spring  in 
its  cool  and  shaded  elevations.  "  Enter  into  thy 
closet,  and  shut  the  door."  The  grandest  spirits 
of  the  world  have  girded  themselves  for  their  he 
roic  works  by  seasons  of  lonely  retirement :  Moses 
at  the  mount,  with  the  awful  alternations  of  thun 
der  and  silence ;  Elijah  in  the  cave  of  the  desert, 
with  the  wind,  and  the  fire,  and  the  stillness ;  David 
in  the  sheep-cote  and  the  mountains;  Paul,  three 
years  in  Arabia;  Luther  in  his  cell;  Alfred  in  the 
isle  of  marshes ;  Columbus,  Mohammed,  Washing 
ton, — all  ordained  in  solitude.  Nay,  of  the  Lord 
and  Head  of  the  Race  himself,  the  brief  ministry 
and  the  eternal  redemption  must  begin  with  forty 


OF     DIVINE      THOUGHT.  55 

days  in  the  wilderness.  But  notice  that  in  every 
one  of  these  cases,  the  solitude  is  the  preparation, 
not  the  life.  Its  very  efficacy  is  in  its  solemn  bap 
tism  for  the  human  labor  and  sacrifice  that  come 
after.  Through  that  holy  portal  of  meditation  the 
saints,  the  heroes,  and  the  Lord  passed  straight  on 
into  service  for  man.  Just  there,  every  species  of 
monasticisni  fails  fatally.  It  takes  the  exceptional 
and  makes  it  normal.  It  cuts  off  the  uses  which 
mount  and  desert  and  closet  were  ordained  ex 
pressly  to  make  ready,  and  renders  the  gracious  hour 
of  prayer  to  Heaven  an  indolent  and  protracted  false 
hood  against  the  world.  He  cannot  be  the  true  de 
votee  to  God  who  is  infidel  to  man,  nor  can  he  honor 
the  Saviour  who  denies  society.  In  the  morning 
Christ  came  down  from  the  mountain  to  the  multitude. 
Those  hermits'  caverns  that  bored  the  mountains 
of  the  East  into  rocky  honey-combs,  often  became 
tombs  that  buried  the  withered  limbs  of  the  Church, 
not  chambers  nor  oratories  that  refreshed  its  ener 
gies.  The  lean  jaws  of  asceticism  gnawed  out  se 
pulchres  for  truth,  but  no  living  home.  Even  the 
social  lusts  and  vices  were  not  escaped;  for,  in 
idleness  and  reverie,  the  morbid  imagination  threw 
its  doors  wide  open  to  their  corrupting  images,  and 
they  who  fled  from  the  mammon  of  the  market 
place,  were  sometimes  tormented  by  fiends  more 


56  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

fiendish,  and  devils  more  devilish,  in  the  clois 
ter. 

It  has  been  said  that  only  men's  moral  senti 
ments  unite  them ;  that  the  passions  are  divisive. 
But  this  implies  a  superficial  definition  of  the  word 
passions.  The  passions  are  not  an  army  of  aliens 
or  border  ruffians,  encamped  on  the  territory  of  the 
soul,  to  besiege  it  with  eternal  and  irreconcileable 
hostility.  Human  nature  admits  no  absolute  con 
tradictions.  What  we  call  the  passions  in  a  bad 
sense  are  the  unprincipled  excesses,  the  guilty 
abuses,  of  propensities  the  Creator  planted  in  us 
for  social  safety,  harmony,  and  utility.  At  the 
Fall,  man  fell  through  his  passions  not  into  them. 
Anarchy  was  provoked  within  him.  The  truth  is, 
every  unperverted  faculty  in  us  either  terminates 
in  or  at  least  harmonizes  with  social  tendencies. 
You  neither  enjoy,  nor  want,  very  long,  except  in 
connection  with  others.  You  must  impart  or  dis 
play  what  you  have ; — you  must  search  out,  and 
earn,  or  borrow,  or  beg,  from  others,  what  you  de 
sire  :  social  acts. 

Now,  in  the  animal  economy,  physiologists  tell 
us,  it  is  an  established  principle  that  the  eleva 
tion  of  the  type  is  attended  by  an  increased  va 
riety  in  the  specific  organs ;  i.  £.,  the  nobler  the 
kind  of  creature,  the  more  complicated  the  specific 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  57 

parts,  yet  all  embraced  under  a  greater  unity  and 
simplicity  of  plan.  Witness  a  polyp  and  man, — 
the  extremes  of  the  animal  kingdom.  A  corre 
sponding  rule  prevails  in  the  kingdom  of  Society. 
The  more  exactly  fitted  the  members  of  a  commu 
nity  are  to  fulfil  the  common  ends,  and  to  adorn 
the  commonwealth,  the  more  diversified  will  be  their 
several  private  capabilities.  That  will  be  the  no 
blest  people,  not  wrhere  there  is  the  tamest  unifor 
mity,  but  where  there  is  the  most  striking  variety, 
— as  to  gifts,  dispositions,  occupations.  Hence,  as 
Society  approaches  its  perfection,  there  will  be  more 
and  more  developed  that  "  tendency  to  individua- 
tion"  which  Mr.  Coleridge  pronounces  the  true  idea 
of  human  life. 

So,  a  thoughtful  and  comprehensive  writer  on 
civilization*  makes  it  consist  of  two  elements,  and 
live  on  two  conditions ;  viz.,  the  melioration  of  the 
social  system ;  and  the  expansion  of  the  individual 
mind.  "  Wherever  the  exterior  condition  of  man 
becomes  enlarged,  quickened,  and  improved,  and 
wherever  the  intellectual  nature  distinguishes  itself 
by  its  energy,  brilliancy,  and  grandeur, — wherever 
these  two  signs  concur,  there  man  proclaims  and 
applauds  civilization."  Everything,  as  he  goes  on 
to  show,  supports  this  remark, — common  sense,  the 

*  M.  Guizot. 


58  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

nature  of  both  the  elements  in  question,  and  his 
tory.  "What,  at  the  origin  of  societies,  have  the 
founders  of  religion,  the  sages,  poets,  and  philoso 
phers,  who  have  labored  to  regulate  and  refine  the 
manners  of  mankind,  promised  themselves  ?  What, 
but  the  melioration  of  the  social  condition;  the 
more  equitable  distribution  of  the  blessings  of  life? 
We  know  that  if  men  were  persuaded  that  the 
melioration  of  the  social  condition  would  operate 
against  the  individual  mind,  they  would  almost  op 
pose  and  cry  out  against  the  advancement  of  So 
ciety.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  speak  to 
mankind  of  improving  Society  by  improving  its  in 
dividual  members,  we  find  them  willing  to  believe 
us.  Hence  we  may  affirm  that  it  is  the  intuitive 
belief  of  man  that  these  two  elements  of  civiliza 
tion  are  intimately  connected,  and  that  they  re 
ciprocally  produce  one  another." 

Again,  it  is  undoubtedly  true,  that  individual 
strength,  purity,  integrity,  are  all  put  in  peril  by 
an  excess,  or  by  a  corruption,  of  social  mixtures. 
And  it  is  because  man's  lower  nature  can  act 
through  the  social  spirit,  as  well  as  the  higher. 
Among  its  awful  prerogatives,  Society  has  it  in  its 
power  to  make  men  worse  instead  of .  better  than 
they  are, — to  tempt,  to  mislead,  to  seduce,  to  de 
grade.  There  are  vices  that  get  an  easier  access, 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  59 

and  take  a  more  desperate  hold,  by  social  excite 
ments.  So,  the  dominant  temper  of  a  social  class, 
or  clique,  may  tend  to  repress  individual  freedom, 
to  cripple  personal  force,  to  substitute  fashion  for 
conscience  and  imitation  for  originality,  to  tone  down 
every  heavenly  aspiration,  to  criticise  nature  into  a 
conventional,  Pharisaic  propriety,  and  to  razee  every 
fresh,  spontaneous  moral  energy  into  a  respectable, 
polished  stupidity.  People  ask  then,  not  what  is 
right,  true,  beautiful;  but,  what  will  our  set  say? 
This,  however,  is  not  the  fault  of  Society,  but  an 
outrage  upon  it.  There,  certain  low-bred,  vulgar 
instincts  have  usurped  the  apparatus  of  social  life, 
meant  to  be  a  free  vehicle  for  sincere  feeling,  and 
turned  it  into  a  non-conductor.  Society  is  indis 
pensable  ;  these  are  its  prostitutions.  Society  is 
the  appointed  agent  of  joy;  there  are  its  infidelities 
and  sins.  Society  is  meant  to  quicken  men  by  its 
demands,  to  nourish  them  by  its  sympathies,  to 
call  them  out  to  their  several  best  achievements  by 
its  opportunities ; — but  these  are  the  perversions  of 
its  power  by  souls  too  small  to  be  expanded  or  too 
stiff  to  be  moulded  to  manliness  and  womanliness 
by  its  plastic  spirit.  Where  it  is  permitted  to  do 
its  unobstructed  work,  there  it  will  always  be  seen 
striking  and  preserving  just  this  beautiful  balance 
between  the  popular  and  the  personal  welfare, — be- 


60  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

tween  public  combination  and  individual  peculiarity, 
between  the  general  and  the  private  virtue.  There 
you  will  see  it  tempering  each  of  the  personal 
vices  with  a  social  grace, — self-love  with  compassion, 
avarice  with  generosity,  breaking  up  a  morbid  intro 
spection  by  spreading  out  the  broader  scenery  of 
other  men's  experience,  cheering  gloom  into  laugh 
ter,  brightening  despondency  into  humor,  genializing 
misanthropy  into  good  nature,  calling  us  off  from 
petting  and  nursing  our  own  whims  to  relieving  dis 
tress  and  helping  the  neighborhood,  goading  sloth 
to  enterprise,  bracing  indecision  to  action,  guiding 
economy  between  prodigality  and  miserliness,  train 
ing  insubordination  and  arrogance  to  obedience,  pour 
ing  into  the  shrunk  veins  of  prudence  the  fresh  blood 
of  enthusiasm,  giving  to  fidelity  a  grander  field,  and 
lifting  cowardice  to  heroism.  All  these  are  the 
regular,  gracious,  yet  half  unconscious  education  that 
Society  is  ever  giving  to  our  souls ;  and  they  show 
it  to  be  an  august  Priesthood  to  man's  personal 
Humanity.  And  all  this  is  a  Law  of  Society, — a 
thought  of  God. 

II.  Again,  Human  Society  is  a  grand  theatre  for 
the  operation  of  the  principle  of  moral  and  spir 
itual  reactions ;  —  another  Divine  idea.  Moral  pos 
sessions  increase  by  being  given  away.  Accumula 
tion  proceeds  by  distribution.  The  more  we  give 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  61 

out,  for  man's  sake,  the  more  we  take  back. 
Every  affectionate  act  amplifies  the  heart,  and  in 
tensifies  its  power  of  loving.  Without  efforts  to 
bless  and  convert  somebody  besides  yourself,  your 
own  soul's  convictions  dwindle  and  its  circulations 
stagnate.  Obviously,  it  is  only  a  social  nature  that 
makes  this  principle  possible. 

In  the  realms  of  physical  being  we  meet  no 
traces  of  it,  or,  at  best,  but  hints  and  approxima 
tions.  There  is  reciprocal  benefit,  in  order  and 
beauty.*  One  thing  is  set  over  against  another, 
like  the  rhymes  of  song,  each  in  its  place  and 
season.  Even  the  material  creation  protests  against 
injustice,  against  monopoly,  against  interference; 
her  every  product  has  its  use ;  every  particle  its  ser 
vice;  every  form  or  fibre  its  task  or  its  loveli 
ness.  But  there  she  stops.  Light  emanates  and 
is  reflected ;  but  neither  sun  nor  star  is  brighter 
for  shining.  Vegetation  gives  out  and  takes  in,  by 
its  generative  and  respirative  processes,  but  its  fine 
equilibrium  is  never  emancipated  into  voluntary  and 
at  the  same  time  self-fertilizing  benevolence.  The 
rose  is  no  sweeter  for  the  fragrance  with  which  it 
perfumes  the  morning;  nor  the  stream  fuller  for  its 
liquid  gift,  —  its  "  cup  of  cold  water,"  •  -  to  the 
meadows.  Among  animals,  such  dumb  and  sponta- 

*  See  Lecture  IV. 


62  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

neous  attachments  as  unite  tribes  and  families,  the 
likings  of  the  mother  bird  and  of  the  more  com 
panionable  brutes,  are  bound  fast  by  the  old  limits 
of  instinct  5  they  rarely  rise  to  the  dignity  of 
sympathies,  and  they  nowhere  reveal  the  moral 
grandeur  of  growing  stronger  by  a  conscious,  prin 
cipled  exercise. 

The  moment  we  ascend,  however,  to  social 
man,  the  tokens  of  this  noble  law  stand  forth  in 
splendor.  There  light  is  made  more  lustrous  by 
scattering  its  beams, — none  growing  wise  so  fast  as 
they  that  teach,  every  intellectual  perception  sharp 
ened  by  imparting  knowledge,  every  will  fortified 
by  effort,  every  heart  made  better  by  beneficence. 
They  that  do  the  most,  are  the  most,  —  the  quan 
tity  of  being  ever  multiplied  by  the  uncalculating 
generosity  of  its  bestowment.  That  manhood,  or 
womanhood,  is  the  richest,  which  spends  most  for 
some  un paying  interest  of  humanity.  Find  out 
that  pair  of  eyes  which  look  abroad  with  unobtru 
sive  mercy  into  the  domestic  distresses  of  the 
brotherhood ;  find  out  that  pair  of  hands  which  are 
ever  busy  working  the  thing  that  is  good  for  some 
needy  or  troubled  neighbor,  and  you  may  be  sure 
they  belong  to  some  Good  Samaritan  or  Sister  of 
Charity,  wrho,  whether  prosperous  or  unsuccessful  as 
the  world  judges,  is  affluent  with  more  than  the 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  63 

wealth  of  "  barbaric  pearls  and  gold."  Piety  itself 
often  gets  diseased  for  want  of  this  energy  in  com 
municating  itself.  Natures  that  incline  more  to 
reverie  than  to  work  find  their  religious  progress 
unsatisfactory.  Many  believers,  sincere  enough  in 
their  convictions,  as  sincere  as  any  inactive  believer 
can  be,  are  mischievously  hindered  in  the  true  pro 
gress  by  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  Christian 
duty  terminates  in  self-improvement.  Faith  is  soon 
but  a  withered  root,  unless  it  bears  flowers  and 
fruits.  None  of  us  are  appointed  to  walk  to 
heaven  alone ;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  any  of  us  will 
ever  get  there  who  do  not,  somehow,  help  some 
other  soul  thither.  The  best  nurture  for  personal 
religion,  after  prayer,  is  an  effort  to  spiritualize 
some  child,  house-mate,  acquaintance,  or  heathen. 
If  you  draw  back  your  hand,  when  it  is  invited 
to  a  beneficent  task,  the  spiritual  muscles  are 
gradually  paralyzed.  If  you  tightly  close  the  fin 
gers  over  the  mouth  of  your  purse,  when  there  is 
a  fair  opening  to  give  something  to  extend  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  by  a  book,  a  church,  or  a 
missionary,  then  you  pinch,  at  that  moment,  the  di 
mensions  of  your  own  soul.  "  Give,  and  it  shall 
be  given  unto  you." 

As   this  is   a   principle    which    has    its    purest   ac 
tivity   in   the  highest,  that    is,    in  the    spiritual    part 


64  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

of  man,  we  must  naturally  go,  for  instances  and 
illustrations  of  it,  to  the  spiritual  plane,  and  the 
organization  that  specially  represents  that  part, 
which  is  the  Church.  All  the  revolutionary  move 
ments  that  have  extended  the  kingdom  of  Christ, 
disturbed  formality,  and  dethroned  dogmatic  error, 
sweeping  across  slumbering  communities,  have  been 
accompanied  by  intense  missionary  zeal,  either  do 
mestic  or  foreign,  by  immense  and  willing  sacrifices 
of  money  and  comfort  for  the  Gospel's  sake,  by 
earnest  and  enthusiastic  aggressions  on  practical  un 
belief,  sensuality,  Paganism.  Whatever  sect  pre 
sumes  to  take  a  place  as  a  member  in  Christ's 
body  without  this  activity  does  not  "  abide  in  the 
Vine,"  and  must  expect  to  be  cut  off  as  a  dead 
branch.  The  Head  of  all  these  members  has  im 
pressed  it  on  the  whole  organization,  that  whatso 
ever  limb  does  not  give,  to  that  it  shall  not  be 
given. 

Seek  illustrations  in  the  actual  history  of  the 
Church.  "Whatever  prevailing  form  Christian  faith 
has  taken,  activity  from  the  centre  outward  has 
been  the  uniform  condition  of  success,  and  the  in 
variable  sign  of  life.  When  the  Church  has  been 
doing  most  outside  of  itself,  it  has  had  most  vigor 
within  itself.  Its  periods  of  self-sacrifice  have  been 
its  periods  of  glory.  Such  is  the  reactive  force 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  65 

of  spiritual  industry.  In  the  apostolic  age,  the 
brightest  and  most  wonderful  ecclesiastical  era,  al 
most  the  entire  work  of  the  Church  was  of  this 
sort.  The  genius  of  Christianity  then,  having 
planted  and  established  a  church  in  any  place, 
could  hardly  afford  to  stop  to  watch  over  it,— 
but  flew  on,  from  country  to  country,  from  island 
to  island,  from  city  to  city,  eager  to  kindle 
new  fires  in  every  seat  of  darkness.  Those  brave 
and  ardent  men  not  only  gave  a  part, — they  gave 
everything,  —  houses,  property,  reputation,  comfort, 
blood,  —  they  gave  themselves.  Thus,  while  they 
gave  without  stint,  "  it  was  given  to  them  with 
out  measure."  Later,  the  mediaeval  church,  in  the 
midst  of  its  errors,  was  strong  at  home,  just  in 
proportion  to  its  zeal  abroad.  Read  the  history  of 
Jesuit  missions  in  South  America,  in  Canada,  in 
India,  and  all  the  East.  When  Protestantism  came, 
it  was  as  a  missionary  cause  that  it  advanced  and 
triumphed.  Since  that  time,  there  has  always  been 
a  most  significant  and  providential  coincidence  be 
tween  the  waking  up  of  religion  into  practical  power, 
and  its  endeavors  to  extend  itself  to  the  destitute.* 
It  is  unquestionable  that  when  the  spirit  of  mis 
sions  broke  forth  in  Protestant  England,  the  religion 
of  England  was  saved  from  impending  extinction. 

*  See  Examples  in  "  The  Great  Commission.'* 
5 


66  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

There  is  even  reason  to  believe  that  had  a  single 
heathen  never  been  converted,  the  impulse  given  to 
Christianity  at  home  by  the  movement,  and  all  its 
generous  influences,  would  have  justified  the  entire 
expenditure,  because  no  other  expenditure  of  the 
same  means  could  have  accomplished  the  result  so 
effectually.  The  dull  monotony  of  preaching  and 
worship  was  at  once  broken  up,  all  over  the  realm. 
The  slackening  bonds  of  union  and  sympathy  be 
tween  churches  and  ministers  were  forthwith  tight 
ened.  Mutual  suspicions  and  jealousies  were  scat 
tered.  Discords  were  healed.  The  whole  religion 
of  the  country  became  practical,  pure,  and  substan 
tial.  Under  the  general  invigoration,  a  cluster  of 
kindred  philanthropies  sprang  into  being;  for  it  is 
the  nature  of  no  real  beneficence  to  live  alone. 
We  may  say  what  we  will  of  charity  beginning  at 
home,  the  historical  fact  is  found  to  be  that  most 
is  done  at  their  own  doors,  by  those  who  stretch 
their  arms  the  widest, — for  the  very  palpable  rea 
son  that  a  beneficent  spirit,  when  kindled,  works  in 
all  directions.  When  we  hear  the  celebrated  An 
drew  Fuller  telling  of  that  period  in  his  ministry 
when  he  sought  by  every  means  to  remove  the 
clouds  of  darkness  and  doubt  that  had  settled  down 
on  his  parish,  but  sought  in  vain,  till  suddenly 
the  interest  of  the  new  movement  for  heathendom 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  67 

seized  on  his  people,  —  and  then  how  the  women 
began  to  collect  money.,  and  the  men  to  take  coun 
sel,  and  all  to  work  and  pray,  so  that  before  they 
were  aware  every  complaint  ceased,  "  the  sad  be 
came  cheerful,  and  the  desponding  calm,"  simply 
because  "  God  blessed  them  while  they  tried  to  be 
a  blessing ;"  when  we  learn  from  the  record  of 
the  earliest  British  Baptist  missions,  how,  when  the 
cause  became  popular,  religious  indifference  gave 
place  to  righteous  living,  backsliders  were  restored, 
fears  were  dispelled,  and  peace  and  strength  were 
renewed,  —  we  begin  to  see  how  true  it  may  be 
that  even  Macedonia,  Nestoria,  and  Labrador,  by 
only  lifting  up  their  supplication  for  help,  may  be 
come  apostles  that  reconvert  a  declining  Christen 
dom  to  Christ. 

So  in  particular  local  bodies.  There  is  no  pro 
moter  of  parish  life,  or  peace,  like  liberal  sacrifices 
to  extend  the  cause,  and  build  up  new  parishes. 
The  social  law  comes  in  to  bind,  as  well  as  to 
build.  The  church  that  shuts  itself  up  in  its  own 
privileges,  contents  itself  with  occupying  its  own 
pews  on  Sunday,  lounges  on  its  own  cushions,  and 
takes  an  epicurean  satisfaction  in  its  own  culture, 
or  choir,  or  opinions,  or  architecture,  or  preacher's 
reputation  and  eloquence,  is  smitten  and  accursed, 
in  its  violation  of  this  law.  The  contribution-box 


DO  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

becomes  a  kind  of  spiritual  thermometer.  If  Prov 
idence  were  to  resuscitate  one  of  our  sleek,  well- 
fed,  fashionably  dressed,  self-righteous  congregations, 
dying  of  ecclesiastical  luxury  and  rhetorical  surfeit, 
he  would  turn  it  out  into  the  lanes  and  homes 
of  the  poor,  invigorating  its  dyspeptic  faith  by 
earnest  works  of  charity. 

In  all  the  operations  of  this  reactionary  power 
we  see  one  of  the  most  majestic  proofs  that  in 
the  highest  interests  of  man,  his  social  nature  plays 
a  leading  part,  and  that  this  particular  action  of 
that  nature  is  a  design  of  God. 

III.  There  are,  furthermore,  certain  great  moral 
ideas  of  God's  own  Being,  which  he  has  evidently 
created  Society  to  work  out  into  visible  shapes  on 
earth.  They  reside  in  his  own  perfect  Life.  They 
are  also  the  Divine  glory  of  Humanity.  They 
form  the  essence  of  all  we  know  of  Morality.  A 
brief  reference  to  these  will  serve  our  immediate 
purpose.  They  are  Eight,  Truth,  Love,  Liberty. 
We  may  take  these  either  as  principles  for  man, 
or  as  attributes  of  God.  Society  is  a  means  God 
uses  to  set  them  forth,  and  put  them  into  practical 
power  on  earth. 

1.  The  first,  by  its  radical  importance  to  the 
very  existence  of  Society,  has  always  been  repre 
sented  by  an  actual  institution,  viz.,  Government. 


OF     DIVINE      THOUGHT.  69 

Logically,  the  basis  of  Government  is  the  need  of 
Justice  between  man  and  man.  But  practically, 
you  say,  the  actual  Government  often  turns  out 
the  foe  of  justice.  Nevertheless  the  Government 
is  still,  and  evermore,  the  struggling,  aspiring,  and 
persevering  endeavor  of  the  people  to  realize  Right. 
From  the  beginning,  Society  has  been  working  to 
wards  that  end.  Logically,  the  Ruler  should  be 
the  justest  man  of  the  nation.  Practically,  he  may 
be  a  military  conqueror,  like  Nimrod,  Tamerlane, 
Bernadotte,  Napoleon  I. ;  —  or  he  may  be  a  petty 
diplomatist  and  imitator,  like  modern  Kings  and 
Presidents,  too  many  to  mention ; — or  he  may  be  a 
cruel  and  selfish  tyrant,  like  the  tyrants  of  Italy, 
Spain,  and  the  East;  or  he  may  be  only  the  son 
of  his  father,  like  Bourbons  and  Stuarts.  Where 
the  governing  power  shall  at  any  given  time  be 
lodged,  is  a  question  of  many  answers.  "  In  the 
will  of  the  Prince,"  say  Hobbes,  Machiavel,  the 
Austrian  Catechism,  and  despotisms  generally.  "  In 
the  will  of  the  People,"  say  Milton,  Locke,  Jef 
ferson.  "  In  some  representation  of  the  wisest 
part  of  the  People,"  say  the  Federal  Republicans. 
But  through  them  all,  —  and  this  is  the  thing  of 
impression  and  beauty  and  meaning, — through  them 
all  Law  is  vindicated,  stern,  kind  mother  of  our 
peace.  The  eternal  distinction  is  kept  alive.  So- 


70  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

ciety  repeats  its  claim  for  equity.  Justice  is  ad 
vanced,  —  blessed  guaranty  of  every  social  bond. 
The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Right 
is  held  up,  and  borne  on,  to  her  slow  but  patient 
victory. 

"  Careless  seems  the  Great  Avenger ;  History's  pages  but  record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  twixt  old  systems  and  the  Word ; 
Truth  forever  on  the  Scaffold, — Wrong  forever  on  the  Throne, — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  Future,  and,  behind  the  dim  Unknown, 
Standeth  God,  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above  his  own." 

2.  So  with  Truth.  Veracity  is  a  social  virtue. 
Society  nurtures  it,  tries  it,  manifests  it.  In  soli 
tude,  it  would  miss  its  most  generous  action,  even 
if  we  can  conceive  of  its  existence.  Falsehood 
may  sometimes  bear  Truth  down.  Cunning  may 
pervert  it,  self-interest  may  stifle  it,  hypocrisy  may 
betray  it.  Yet  through  all  that  conflict  of  long 
ages,  and  by  man's  social  nature,  Truth  is  steadily 
rising  to  her  empire,  building  her  eternal  throne  on 
the  ruins  of  Error.  He  reads  the  Past  backwards 
who  does  not  see  in  all  social  clashings  and  con 
flicts  the  inevitable  process  that  is  to  make  man 
true  with  man,  base  institutions  on  probity,  not  on 
cant,  superstition,  or  heresy,  and  through  ten  thou 
sand  experiments  and  contests  show  how  God  him 
self  is  True. 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  71 

3.  As  to  Love :  to  say  that  Love  is  a  social 
virtue  is  mere  tautology.  It  has  appeared  that 
the  force  which  draws  and  cements  Society, — and 
makes  it  to  be  Society,  —  cannot  be  hate,  can 
not-  be  fear,  cannot  be  sordid  self-interest,  nor  any 
of  the  repulsive  passions :  for  the  simple  reason 
that,  in  morals  as  in  physics,  repulsions  never 
attract.  One  principle  constructs  Society,  as  one 
will  marshals  the  stars.  If  He  whose  name  is 
Love  had  been  seeking  only  a  scheme  to  exhibit, 
in  free  play,  the  first  attribute  of  his  own  nature, 
Human  Society  would  be  the  result, — with  its  mu 
tual  dependencies,  its  parental  instincts,  its  gra 
cious  sympathies,  its  spontaneous  charities,  its  brave 
and  loyal  devotedness.  These,  too,  must  contend 
with  their  opposites.  Free  will  must  find  antipathy, 
and  jealousy,  and  revenge,  and  spite  to  be  possible. 
The  two  powers,  Light  and  Darkness,  Ormuzd  and 
Ahriman,  must  fight  their  battle  out.  We  only 
utter  the  general  human  instinct  wrhen  we  pronounce 
malice,  with  its  great  engine,  war, — malice  in  all 
its  shades,  and  war  in  all  its  shapes, — to  be  anti 
social.  But  malice  dies ;  the  affections  are  immor 
tal.  And  ever  since  the  solitude  of  the  unwedded 
Adam  wTas  broken  by  the  coming  of  his  bride, 
through  lapse  and  recovery,  through  alienation  and 
redemption,  the  Race  has  been  feeling  its  way 


72  SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT 

forward    to  the    fulfilment    of    the    promise, — "  Peace 
on    earth ;    good    will    to    men." 

4.  Finally,  Freedom.  Through  what  an  august 
succession  of  national  tragedies  has  God  led  man 
kind,  that  he  might  teach  them  the  folly  and  the 
wrong  of  oppression,  —  the  glory  of  that  Liberty 
with  which  Christ  makes  his  people  free !  What 
experiments  of  sorrow !  What  lessons  of  ruin ! 
What  baptisms  of  blood !  There  you  read,  again 
and  again,  how  tyranny  is  anarchy,  how  the  im 
mortal  spirit  in  chains  thirsts  insatiably  for  emanci 
pation,  how  a  man  under  the  heel  of  his  fellow  is 
ever  a  magazine  of  terror,  how  slavery  is  death. 
See  the  conditions  of  the  problem,  and  then  the 
demonstration.  See  a  fertile,  inexhaustible  soil,  a 
lovely  climate,  open  markets,  stout,  able-bodied  ne 
groes,  just  kidnapped,  or  fed  and  reared  up  to  six 
teen  hours'  work  in  the  twenty-four,  with  a  present 
cost  of  maintenance  of  only  a  pint  or  two  of  flour 
and  a  salt  herring  a  day.  What  should  prevent  un 
bounded  accumulations  of  wealth  and  every  outward 
advantage  to  the  planter,  then?  Nothing,  perhaps, 
if  man,  the  animal,  were  all.  But  there  is  a  God 
of  Liberty  and  a  God  of  Sabaoth,  in  heaven,  who 
has  planted  his  social  Family  for  other  ends,  into 
whose  ears  the  cry  of  the  oppressed  hath  entered, 
and  will  enter  forever;  and  so,  instead  of  durable 


OF     DIVINE     THOUGHT.  73 

riches  and  honor,  impoverishment,  vice,  degradation ! 
On  the  one  side  a  few  proud,  opulent,  indolent 
nabobs,  whose  children  wither  and  corrupt  by  lazi 
ness  and  sloth;  on  the  other,  a  beggared,  short 
lived,  terror-struck  population,  with  mortgaged  estates 
of  exhausted  lands !  See,  the  tyrant  and  slave 
owner  is  himself  but  "  a  slave  turned  inside  out ;" 
even  as  Gibbon  says  it  was  in  the  Byzantine 
palace, — where  the  emperor  was  the  first  captive  of 
the  ceremonies  he  had  imposed.  See  an  East  India 
Company,  by  a  career  of  cruel  aggression  on  a  coun 
try  full  of  the  materials  of  wealth,  acquiring  a  debt 
of  fifty  millions  sterling,  and  what  besides  of  retri 
butive  carnage  and  horror,  let  the  daily  British 
journals,  and  the  wail,  yet  moaning  in  thousands 
of  British  households,  tell.  See  the  splendor  and 
majesty  of  Rome  rotted  by  slavery.  See  the  taxa 
tion  of  American  colonists  reacting  into  a  Revolu 
tion  of  independence,  and  taxing  the  mother  country 
herself  for  a  hundred  millions.  See  everywhere  illus 
trations  of  the  true  saying  of  Lamartine  :  "  Man 
never  yet  fastened  one  end  of  a  chain  round  the 
neck  of  his  brother,  that  God's  own  hand  did  not 
fasten  the  other  end  round  the  neck  of  the  op 
pressor."  See,  from  first  to  last,  what  Napoleon 
himself  had  finally  to  confess,  that  "without  justice 
there  is  no  power."  See,  in  a  word,  that  over  all 


74       SOCIETY     A     LIVING     INSTRUMENT,    ETC. 

social  communities   and   ranks,  rules  a  Nemesis  whose 
name    is    the    Lord   of   Love,   Almighty. 

"  For  He  that  looketh  high,  and  wide, 

Nor  pauses  in  His  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  sky, 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man." 


LECTURE    III. 

SOCIETY   A   DISCIPLINE   OF   INDIVIDUAL   CHARACTER. 

IT  was  attempted,  in  the  two  former  lectures,  af 
ter  defining  Human  Society,  to  show,  first,  that  it  is 
a  divine  appointment  in  itself;  and  secondly,  that  its 
Laws  and  its  Principles  are  the  Creator's  thoughts 
and  purposes.  In  order  not  to  anticipate  subsequent 
steps,  the  argument  was  there  confined,  for  the  most 
part,  to  Society  as  a  whole,  without  a  detailed  in 
vestigation  of  its  particulars.  I  spoke  of  the  impress 
of  God's  design  to  be  seen  on  its  origin,  on  the 
scene  and  the  manner  of  its  external  development, 
and  in  the  providential  ideas  which  it  represents 
and  tends  more  and  more  to  embody. 

Not  that  everything  in  social  life  is  divine.  Chris 
tian  philosophy  admits  no  such  loose,  perverted  opti 
mism  as  that.  Because  we  discover  that  God  has 
certain  definite  intentions  in  the  social  constitution, 
we  are  not  therefore  at  liberty  to  infer  that  the 
whole  operation  of  Society,  and  all  its  temporary  or 
local  effects,  will  be  what  a  God  of  justice  and  love 
approves.  The  design  is  one  thing;  the  hindrances, 


76  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

from  man's  evil,  through  which  the  design  is  worked 
out,  are  another  thing.  The  electric  fluid  does  not 
accomplish  its  passage  by  a  straight  path,  but  follows 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  Account  for  it  by  what 
ever  theory  we  may,  depravity  must  be  admitted  as 
a  fact  consequent  upon  moral  trial.  Doubtless  the 
disturbing  influences,  emanating  from  the  passions  of 
mankind,  which  now  are  suffered  to  mix  and  confuse 
the  currents  of  history,  might  be  borne  down  by  Om 
nipotence  j  the  sea  of  human  affairs  might  be  swept 
into  a  flat  monotony  by  the  irresistible  wind  of  an 
arbitrary  will.  But  then  the  Almighty's  government 
would  be  another  economy  from  the  actual  one,  nor 
would  he  be  God. 

It  is  necessary  especially  to  remember  this,  as 
we  now  come  to  treat  of  Society  as  a  discipline  of 
individual  character.  God  uses  our  social  relations 
to  exercise  us,  and  ripen  us,  in  the  qualities  of  per 
sonal  virtue  and  the  strengths  of  a  right  life.  He 
sets  us  down  on  a  social  planet,  surrounds  us  with 
fellow-beings,  implicates  us  in  a  promiscuous  play  of 
passions,  that  through  this  intermixture,  friction  and 
conflict,  each  and  all  might  grow  into  ampler  pro 
portions,  into  stouter  fibre,  into  a  more  flexible  ac 
tivity.  Yet  we  must  not  expect  to  see  this  result 
produced  with  a  fatal  uniformity.  Moral  freedom 
remains.  Heaven  itself  jealously  guards  forever  the 


OF    INDIVIDUAL    CHARACTER.  77 

sacred  liberty  of  choice.  It  is  like  any  other  op 
portunity  of  pupilage.  You  may  learn  and  grow 
wise  if  you  will.  If  you  will,  you  may  slight 
your  lesson  and  be  a  fool.  The  social  laws  act 
for  us,  but  they  will  not  compel  us. 

The  main  proposition  is  simple,  and  it  is  this  : 
In  making  man  what  man  was  meant  to  be,  the 
Creator  first  gave  him  a  social  nature,  and  then  set 
him  down  in  social  surroundings.  How  the  former 
is  acted  on  by  the  latter,  the  soul  by  Society,  is 
what  we  have  now  to  illustrate .  In  such  a  re 
view,  the  resort  must  be  to  familiar  scenery, — sights 
and  sounds  that  are  seen  and  heard  of  all  men 
and  women.  Here  history  will  not  serve  us  much, 
because  history,  as  it  has  been  hitherto  written,  has 
less  to  do  with  the  secret  life  and  real  experience 
of  humanity  than  with  its  public  exploits,  its  poli 
cies,  dynasties  and  battles ;  less  with  its  spirit  than 
its  forms ;  less  with  men  and  women,  the  people, 
than  with  their  captains  and  managers.  Treatises 
can  here  help  us  little,  because,  as  we  have  said, 
social  laws  are  not  reduced  to  a  scientific  system. 

The  argument  must  proceed  by  passing  before 
us  some  of  the  principal  forms  in  which  Society 
exists,  to  discover  in  them  influences  which  are 
their  own  moral  evidence,  and  a  spiritual  signifi 
cance  which  is  a  manifest  demonstration  of  God. 


78  SOCIETY    A    DISCIPLINE 

These  will  be,  chiefly,  the  seven  social  types  pro 
duced  by  kindred  blood,  by  unequal  strength,  by 
the  instinct  of  sympathetic  entertainment,  by  trade, 
by  local  habitation,  by  congregational  emotion,  and 
by  public  opinion. 

Approach,  then,  these  permanent  and  familiar 
forms  of  social  life,  to  observe  how  they  are  ever 
carrying  forward  their  educatory  work,  and  vindi 
cating  their  office  as  providential  schoolmasters. 

I.  First,  and  simplest,  is  the  Family.  There  the 
sensitiveness  of  affection,  the  closeness  and  con 
stancy  of  contact,  the  felt  need  of  mutual  trust 
and  boundless  tolerance,  the  immense  freight  of 
happiness  staked  on  implicit  confidence,  render  every 
household  a  most  critical  and  exacting  test  of  gen 
uine  goodness.  It  is  a  superficial  notion  that  in  the 
sacred  enclosure  of  domestic  habit,  all  virtue  is  par 
ticularly  natural  and  easy.  On  the  contrary,  the 
very  value  of  the  love  that  ought  to  reign  there, 
the  very  beauty  of  the  tenderness  that  ought  to 
soften  all  the  asperities  and  adorn  all  the  drudge 
ries,  the  very  charm  that  ought  to  invest  the 
homely  routine  of  task-work,  and  dignify  with  fresh 
enthusiasm  the  dullness  of  drooping  spirits  and 
weary  nerves, — all  this  only  doubles  the  bitterness 
of  disappointment  when  the  ideal  Paradise  is  lost, 
or  never  found.  There,  as  everywhere,  in  proportion 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  79 

to  the  sacredness  of  the  place,  and  the  immensity 
of  hope,  is  the  cruelty  of  the  desecration  and  the 
torture  of  sensibility,  when  the  first  disappointing 
discord  jars  the  air.  We  all  know  how  hard  for 
pride  it  often  is  to  take  the  frank  fault-finding  of 
housemates,  simply  because  conscience  whispers  they 
know  us  best,  and  the  blame  must  be  real.  Each 
understands  the  other's  weaknesses,  and  a  censure 
there  is  like  the  decree  of  doom.  Besides,  it  is  in 
the  eyes  of  those  we  love  most  that  we  long  to  be 
most  approved,  and  their  dreadful  discovery  of  our 
infirmities  is  a  wrench  of  pain.  The  truth  is,  there 
is  no  spot  on  earth,  no  Delos  of  inevitable  peace, 
not  even  the  blessed  Eden  of  our  home,  where  the 
impulses  of  kindness  can  supersede  the  tuition  of 
experience,  or  the  promptings  of  nature  dispense 
with  the  principles  of  religion. 

And  therefore  God  sets  our  childhood  into  the 
Family,  as  into  a  solemn,  cheerful,  difficult  school 
for  its  faculties.  Therefore  he  has  appointed  that  the 
human  spirit  shall  first  wake  to  consciousness,  feel 
its  first  ties,  confront  its  first  trials  there,  under 
those  tones  of  the  mother's  voice,  which,  it  has 
been  beautifully  said,  no  skill  of  vocal  art  could 
ever  imitate,  and  amid  those  expectant,  encourag 
ing  affections,  which  tempt  out  into  exercise  every 
nascent  energy.  Therefore  he  has  ordained  marriage, 


80  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

and  immured  it  with  care  and  love  and  modesty, 
guarding  its  pure  precincts  as  much  by  spiritual  at 
tractions  as  by  terrible  penalties,  rebuking  the  vulgar 
frivolity  that  trifles  with  its  sanctities  and  degrades 
its  gates  by  jest  and  gossip,  by  levity  and  license  ; 
yes,  trifles  and  degrades,  as  if  the  satire  that  once 
called  wedlock  "  going  home  by  daylight  after  court 
ship's  masquerade,"  and  the  old  Russian  marriage 
formula  to  the  bridegroom,  "  Here,  wolf,  take  thy 
lamb,"  were  the  highest  philosophy  of  the  theme. 
Therefore  he  has  adjusted,  since  the  first  pair,  the 
proportion  of  the  sexes,  balancing  the  local  prepon 
derance  of  the  one  or  the  other  over  against  some 
special  waste,  and  that  of  the  males  on  the  whole 
against  their  greater  liability  to  exposure  and  de 
struction.  Therefore  he  has  accumulated,  in  kindred 
blood,  from  generation  to  generation,  the  hereditary 
seeds  of  peculiar  dispositions,  traits,  temptations- 
running  the  lines  of  succession  down  through  all 
the  meshes  of  general  diversity,  making  the  Past  as 
well  as  the  Present  to  shape  us.  Therefore  he  has 
surrounded  the  dawning  life  of  perception  and  rea 
son  with  the  marvellous  patience  of  parental  care, 
yet  writing  on  every  new-born  child  the  fearful 
warning  against  parental  folly  or  neglect.  Therefore 
he  has  reciprocated  the  parental  and  filial  offices, 
making  the  offspring  not  seldom  a  refiner  and  even 


OF      INDIVIDUAL      CHARACTER.  81 

rescuer  of  the  father  and  the  mother, — a  "little  child 
leading  them."  Therefore  he  has  blessed  brothers 
with  sisters,  and  sisters  with  brothers,  tempering 
manliness  with  gentleness,  inspiring  the  delicate  soul 
with  courage,  and,  by  a  thousand  reciprocities  of 
strength  and  weakness,  of  older  and  younger,  of  corn 
ers  in  and  goers  out,  joy  and  grief,  decision  and  ami 
ability,  mirth  and  tears,  and  daily  looks  of  faces  and 
tones  of  talk,  has  organized  a  curriculum  of  moral 
study  under  domestic  roofs,  more  complicated,  and 
yet  more  simple,  than  the  oldest  university  ever  saw. 
The  Family  is  the  primary  institution  of  all  social 
order  and  peace.  It  is  that  ordinance  which  Jeho 
vah  wrote  in  nature,  and  Christ  reaffirmed  in  words, 
making  one  woman  the  wife  of  one  husband,  and 
their  wedlock  the  bond  of  every  social  good. 

II.  A  second  method  of  the  discipline  of  character 
is  afforded  by  the  relation  of  the  employer  and  the 
employed.  Every  one  of  these  relationships,  we 
shall  find,  however  accidental  or  merely  economical 
it  seems,  engages  a  new  part  of  our  nature,  and  ex 
ercises  a  new  set  of  dispositions.  What  looked  like 
a  mere  expedient  of  domestic  convenience — as  the 
employment  of  servants,  clerks,  porters — the  God  of 
our  life  takes  up  and  makes  a  portion  of  his  great 
social  plan  for  maturing  our  souls.  If  we  watch  it 
in  this  view,  we  shall  see  that  in  this  peculiar  in- 


82  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

tercourse  there  is  exercised  a  kind  of  morality  less 
animated  by  the  affections  than  that  which  acts  in 
the  Family,  less  guarded  by  equality  of  position 
and  the  mutual  assertion  of  legal  rights,  or  any 
other  intimidation,  than  in  Society  at  large.  Hon 
esty  of  dealing,  for  instance,  when  the  other  party 
to  your  bargain  is  your  equal  in  knowledge  and 
position  —  a  shrewd,  practised  trader,  competent  to 
the  arts  of  traffic — implies  a  different  pitch  of  vir 
tue  from  honesty  with  one  who  is  weak,  uninstruct- 
ed,  partly  overawed  and  disabled  with  a  sense  of 
social  inferiority.  Not  that  there  are  two  kinds  of 
honesty  :  but  the  altered  conditions  test  it  in  differ 
ent  ways  and  degrees.  Then  the  very  fact  of  par 
tial  dependence,  obtaining  not  so  much  in  actual 
servitude,  as  in  most  proletary  classes,  elicits  in 
the  conscientious  master  or  employer  a  distinct  order 
of  sentiments — a  considerateness,  a  feeling  of  protec 
tion,  a  blending  of  parental  vigilance  with  magisterial 
authority — conducive  to  a  peculiar  kind  of  righteous 
ness.  By  the  benignant  compensations  of  a  Provi 
dence  that  nowhere  leaves  the  worst  badness  without 
its  grain  of  good,  it  is  in  this  quarter  that  we  find, 
in  some  forms  of  slavery,  the  ounce  of  benefit  which 
obstinately  holds  out  against  all  the  tremendous  weight 
and  complication  of  wrong.  Vassalage,  serfdom  itself, 
in  an  age  when  Christianity  has  not  yet  created  a 


OF     INDIVIDUAL      CHARACTER.  83 

conscience  against  it,  is  a  moral  opportunity  to  the 
lord  of  the  soil.  Feudalism,  while  it  limited  the 
despotism  of  kings  by  keeping  power  and  arms  in 
the  hands  of  the  baron  and  the  noble,  on  the  other 
hand  offered  to  these  a  generous  culture  in  honor 
and  compassion.  No  domineering  institution,  what 
ever  its  abuses,  is  suffered  to  break  asunder  the 
connection  of  these  divine  compensatory  rules.  You 
have  not  learned  of  your  fellow-citizen  whether  he 
is  a  tyrant  or  a  republican,  liberal  or  mean,  nay, 
a  Christian  or  a  knave,  till  you  know  how  he 
treats  the  laborers  in  his  field,  the  operatives  in 
his  factory,  the  clerks  in  his  store, — looking,  too, 
not  only  at  wages  or  bodily  comfort,  but  at  their 
human  feeling,  their  families,  their  evenings,  their 
Sundays,  their  brain  and  heart.  A  housewife's 
character  is  no  more  revealed,  nor  even  tried,  till 
you  follow  her  from  the  assembly  and  the  church 
to  watch  her  temper,  her  tones,  her  manners,  with 
cook  and  seamstress  and  nursery-maid,  than  an 
actor's  private  thrift  can  be  inferred  from  the  fine 
speeches  and  glittering  costumes  of  the  stage.  In 
the  one  case  her  virtue  was  on  exhibition,  and  was 
performed ;  in  the  other  it  was  at  home  and  itself. 
III.  Come,  however,  next,  as  the  next  wider 
scene,  to  a  company  met  for  social  entertainment. 
"  We  receive/'  says  Montesquieu,  "  three  different 


84  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

educations, — of  our  parents,  of  our  masters,  and  of 
the  world."  Come,  then,  to  that  brilliant  throng, 
—an  evening  party, — that  less  professional  but  not 
always  less  scenic  theatre, — that  more  promiscuous 
enlargement  of  the  household, — that  gay  yet  solemn 
match-ground  and  Olympian  competition  of  all  the 
passions  and  principles  of  men  and  of  women,  so 
festive  and  yet  so  tragical, — such  bubbles  and  span 
gles  of  air  and  light  dancing  on  the  surface,  such 
plots  and  counterplots,  ambitions  and  artifices  only 
a  little  way  beneath  ;  —  but,  oh,  sometimes  such 
mortal  struggles  of  despair  and  peace,  of  love  and 
fear,  of  jealousy  and  candor, — nay,  such  writhings 
of  immortal  demons  and  angels,  far  down  in  the 
deeper  abysses  of  the  unsounded  soul  beneath ! 

It  is  a  scene  like  this,  indeed,  which,  just  be 
cause  it  is  so  lively  and  expressive  a  symbol  or  rep 
resentative  of  what  we  are  most  apt  to  understand 
by  social  life,  has  taken  and  appropriated  to  itself, 
in  many  circles,  as  by  exclusive  application,  that 
undefined,  uncertain  name,  Society :  so  that  people 
flippantly  and  narrowly  say  of  their  neighbors,  ac 
cording  as  they  are  or  are  not  seen  in  such  assem 
blies,  that  they  are,  or  not,  in  society. 

Now,  to  realize  the  discipline  such  a  gathering 
carries  on,  only  consider  the  actual  emotions  which 
there  jostle  against  each  other  ;  get  nutriment  or 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  85 

poison,  get  elbowed  or  courted,  get  sunny  favors  or 
chilly  neglect  or  frosty  scorn,  get  the  warm  hand  or 
the  cold  shoulder,  get  smile  or  sneer,  get  equal  honor 
or  insulting  patronage.  Is  it  possible  to  move  on 
such  a  spot — call  it  battle-field  or  play-ground  as  you 
will — to  stand  among  its  flatteries,  its  criticisms,  its 
concealments,  its  confessions,  its  conversational  tac 
tics,  its  gymnasium  of  ready  and  nimble  thoughts, 
its  phantasmagoria  of  complimentary  nothings  and 
dreary  emptiness,  its  supple  turnings  of  expression, 
its  sentences  begun  in  frankness  but  cunningly 
shaped,  before  they  are  finished,  by  some  pru 
dent  recollection — is  it  possible  to  stand  here,  and 
then  go  out  from  a  tuition  like  this,  without  being 
better  or  worse  ?  Many  a  young  girl,  that  lays  off 
her  ornaments  after  her  first  party,  weary  of  the 
polished  insult  that  has  offered  her  only  a  frivolous 
flattery,  as  if  her  womanly  soul  could  be  content 
with  that,  or  else  giddy  with  the  first  tones  of  the 
silver-tongued  sorcerers,  has  taken  on  her  spirit  that 
night  the  influence  that  sways  her  forever, — making 
her  yet  the  strong  conqueror  of  herself  and  min 
ister  of  light  to  others,  or  else  the  woman  of 
pleasure  that  is  "  dead  while  she  liveth,"  and  never 
to  live  truly  any  more.  See  the  strong  there  bear 
ing  the  infirmities  of  the  weak ;  see  genuine  kind 
ness  seeking  out  the  unknown,  exploring  the  cor- 


86  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

ners  of  the  room  to  entertain  the  timid,  the  ugly, 
or  the  unsocial ;  see  the  self-forgetful  devices  of  the 
simple  desire  to  please  ;  see  the  graceful  sacrifices, 
each  for  each,  of  the  loving  and  beloved ;  see  true 
politeness  waiving  every  unwelcome  topic,  hiding 
the  heart's  unsightly  spots,  and  catching,  by  trained 
perceptions,  the  disguised  signals  of  mortification  or 
painful  memory,  only  to  ward  off  the  annoying  al 
lusion,  while  petty  malice  or  weak  pride  pushes 
the  irritated  sensibility,  and  exults  in  smiting  the 
bruised  reed  ;  see  ruinous  prodigality,  and  over 
against  it  as  ruinous  a  parsimony;  see  the  love  of 
admiration  producing  its  mixed  results, — refinements, 
adornments,  amenities,  all  the  way  from  the  sav 
age  who  tattooes  his  skin  to  the  last  fashionable 
decoration  of  his  most  exquisite  civilized  cousin  ; 
see  an  honesty  of  speech  valiant  as  that  of  mar 
tyr  ages  or  soldiers'  camps,  yet  courtly  as  that  of 
halls  of  state  ;  see  sincerity  like  that  of  the  little 
child  :  I  say,  whatever  else  this  motley  company 
may  be,  it  is  no  mark  for  contempt,  simply  be 
cause  human  creatures  are  so  wrought  and  proved 
there  for  the  Judgment.* 

*  I  have  seen,  in  one  of  the  bright  books  of  the  day,  a  sort  of  argu 
ment  coolly  constructed  against  the  reasonableness  of  broken  hearts,  or 
rather  of  letting  them  ever  be  broken  :  and  thus  a  protest  against  the 
mutual  dependencies  of  social  affection.  "  Human  beings,"  says  this 
easy  author,  delightfully  disposing  of  all  the  deeper  tragedies  of  the 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER  87 

To  discover  this  the  more  completely,  distinguish 
between  this  social  intercourse  as  it  is  apt  to  be, 
and  as  it  ought  to  be,  —  especially  with  reference 
to  those  two  strong  pillars  of  a  muscular  morality, 
veracity  and  courage.  True  social  intercourse  is  not 
a  formal  association  of  people,  moving  under  artifi 
cial  prescriptions,  yoked  by  domineering  customs, 
hoodwinked  by  traditional  conventions,  "  presenting 
their  compliments"  on  handsome  paper,  when  they 
have  really  nothing  to  present  but  suspicion  or 
spite,—  "  very  much  regretting"  they  cannot  be  pres 
ent  where  they  secretly  rejoice  with  all  their  hearts 
not  to  be, — "  requesting  the  honor  and  pleasure"  of 
company  which  they  know  will  bo  rather  a  visita- 

human  heart  by  a  statement  shot  at  the  head, — "  human  beings  hang 
not  on  one  another  in  that  blind  way.  We  have  each  an  individual  soul. 
On  another  soul  may  rest  all  its  hopes  and  joys,  but  on  God  only  rests 
its  worth,  its  duties,  and  its  nobility."  Hence  there  is  no  need,  any 
where,  in  all  God's  world,  of  what  men  mean  by  a  "  broken  heart !" 
O  fluent  and  complacent  philosopher,  I  thought ;  how  much  deeper 
lies  the  truth  than  this  plummet  sounded  !  "  On  another  rest  all  its 
hopes  and  joys,"  and  yet  no  possibility  of  breaking  !  Yes  :  its  worth, 
its  duties,  and  its  nobility  do  rest  on  God.  And  so  rests  there,  blessed 
be  his  Pity  !  the  heart,  that,  just  because  of  the  infinite  capacity  he  gave 
it  for  love  and  hope,  is  broken  here, — never  to  be  bound  up  but  in  the 
healing  air  of  heaven.  Human  beings  do  hang  on  one  another,  not 
in  any  blind,  but  in  that  fearful,  way.  And  so  must  they  be  judged, 
and  comforted, — the  breaker  and  the  broken.  The  awfulness  of  our 
natures  is  the  trust  they  are  to  each  other.  The  infinite  ocean, — joy. 
misery,  affection,  despair, — heaves  and  swings  its  tide  in  every  breast ;. 
but  how  would  it  all  shrink  to  a  drop,  and  even  that  drop  dry  up,  but 
for  the  breasts  that  heave  and  beat  around  it ! 


88  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

tion  than  a  visit, — and  "renewing  the  assurance  of 
their  distinguished  consideration"  for  persons  whom 
nothing  but  self-interest  keeps  them  from  insulting 
to  their  faces,  or  slandering  behind  their  backs. 
This  is  a  Society  of  etiquette,  hypocrisy,  coward 
ice,  ceremony,  and  diplomacy,  not  the  incarna 
tion  of  divine  ideas.  The  four  preceptors  of  that 
training  are  policy,  pretence,  imitation,  appetite. 
Nor  is  it  properly  human,  seeing  how  many  of  its 
elements  it  holds  rather  in  common  with  the  fox, 
the  crocodile,  the  ape,  the  peacock,  or  even  with 
the  devil  and  his  angels. 

The  social  company  that  a  divine  education  con 
templates  is  a  far  nobler  and  far  holier  thing.  It 
is  gathered  by  common  sympathies,  grouped  by 
real  affinities,  seeking  a  liberal  and  harmonious  de 
velopment  of  all  the  best  powers  of  the  race.  It 
is,  as  we  saw,  the  beautiful  balance  of  individual 
peculiarity  with  a  collective  unity,  —  carefully  re 
specting  the  liberty  of  the  one  while  it  guards  the 
order  of  the  other,  —  engaging  a  salient  and  racy 
variety  of  persons  while  it  binds  together  the  whole 
diversified  Jcosmos  by  the  centralizing  gravity  of 
mutual  good  faith.  In  a  word,  it  is  a  Christian 
Society,  rooted  in  Christian  convictions,  expanding 
by  a  Christian  culture,  culminating  in  a  Christian 
commonwealth.  The  rectitude  of  the  lowest  born 


OF     INDIVIDUAL      CHARACTER.  89 

or  bred  is  of  deeper  significance  than  the  pleasure 
of  the  highest.  Divine  in  its  institution,  it  is  hu 
man  in  all  its  experience,  having  for  its  eternal 
Head  that  wondrous  soul  who  blends  both  these  ele 
ments  in  the  august  mystery  of  his  mediation.  It 
is  born  of  God,  and  inspired  by  Christ,  for  the  per 
fecting  of  mankind.  It  may  exist  in  its  essence 
wherever  the  proffers  of  hospitality,  the  sacrament 
of  marriage,  the  emergencies  of  enterprise,  the  hopes 
of  learning,  the  instincts  of  neighborhood,  the  faith 
of  the  church,  gather  two  or  three  together.  Dif 
ferent  lives  touch.  The  germ  of  it  is  the  Family. 
The  full,  unfolded  crown  and  completeness  of  the 
growth,  the  living  dome,  encompassing  flower  and 
fruit  and  leaf  and  bough,  is  the  universal  Family  of 
the  Race.  You  find  it  realized  partially  in  schools, 
in  literary  clubs,  in  leagues,  in  legislatures,  in  na 
tions.  The  same  marvellous  play  of  acting  and  re 
acting  influence  pervades  the  sewing-circle  and  rus 
tic  husking-party  as  the  senate  or  tournament, — the 
children's  summer  pic-nic  as  the  royal  reception. 
The  same  angels  of  mercy  stand  waiting  with  faces 
half  unveiled.  The  same  fiendish  envyings,  calum 
nies,  revenges,  peer  and  scowl  out  of  the  shadows 
behind  : — God's  discipline  forever. 

We     have     all    heard     of    the     little     girls     that 
"  wished    they    could    have    company   all    the    time," 


90  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

and  when  asked  why,  said,  "  Because  then  father 
would  be  always  good-natured."  There  is  the  reve 
lation  of  a  principle.  To  be  sure  you  might  say, 
the  company  made  this  surly  or  petulant  father  a 
hypocrite.  Perhaps  not;  perhaps  the  temporary  ele 
vation  was  real,  and  the  self-control  sincere  ;  per 
haps  the  company  was  only  a  Avholesome  interven 
tion  between  him  and  a  contentious,  impracticable 
influence  from  the  other  side  of  the  house, — a  re 
lief  like  one  of  his  public  conversations  to  Socra 
tes.  But  what  if  it  did,  in  that  case,  occasion 
hypocrisy,  —  the  tribute  vice  pays  to  virtue  ?  It 
would  only  show  that  the  company  exacts  a  higher 
style  of  behavior  than  privacy.  The  fact  is,  Soci 
ety  is  a  kind  of  judgment.  Together,  men  are 
more  in  awe  of  their  own  standards  of  right  than 
alone.  There  is  a  shamefacedness  about  contempti 
ble  foibles,  and  even  sins.  The  law  of  duty,  up 
to  the  sense  of  the  average  recognition,  and  gene 
rally  a  little  higher,  gathers  a  cumulative  force 
and  awfulness.  The  suppression  of  overt  evil  is 
exemplary.  The  restraint  is  a  discipline. 

I  spoke  of  courage.  The  social  company  is  a 
school  for  that.  Fashion  is  the  imperial  tyrant,  of 
which  local  opinion,  unjust  law,  the  privileges  of 
currency  and  popularity  with  your  class,  may  be 
only  the  too  willing  ministers  of  state,  —  adding 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  91 

specific  chains  and  caprices  of  their  own  to  the 
ascendant  cruelty  of  their  liege.  Resistance,  by 
principle,  to  that,  will  be  a  braver  valor,  very  often, 
than  the  facing  of  batteries  or  bayonets.  I  spoke 
of  veracity.  When  shall  the  prophet  come,  in  cam 
el's  hair,  and  leathern  girdle,  that  shall  uncover  the 
abysses  of  our  acted  falsehoods,  and  pour  adequate 
shame  on  our  systematic  impostures  ?  Smiles  on 
our  faces,  with  bitterness  underneath;  cordiality  in 
our  grasp,  with  no  nerve  between  the  fingers  and 
the  heart  ;  love,  marriage,  all  holy  trusts,  made 
merchandise,  and  auctioneered  to  the  loudest  bid  ; 
invitations  of  courtesy  bringing  the  company  together 
by  one  lie ;  greetings  of  indiscriminate  and  extrav 
agant  welcome  receiving  them  with  another  ;  com 
posite  illusions  dressing  and  decorating  them  with 
another ;  ceremonies  of  elaborate  make-believe,  mock 
ing  reality  with  another;  and  insincere  regrets  at 
the  farewell  dismissing  them  with  another  ;  —  who 
will  dare  to  affirm  these  do  not  enter  appallingly 
into  what  we  call  elegant  life  ?  Or  who  will  venture 
on  the  yet  bolder  and  more  faithless  denial  that  the 
final  cause  of  these  exposures  is  to  hasten  the  advent 
of  that  rugged,  truth-speaking,  Christian  time,  which 
shall  rend  apart  these  guilty  impositions,  and  restore 
the  social  world  to  its  upright  simplicity  ? 

IV.  Reference  has  been  made  to  commerce.     Trade 


92  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

is  essentially  a  social  institution.  It  is  one  of  the 
departments  in  this  great  unsystematized  university 
of  social  discipline.,  whether  by  its  regular  processes, 
or  its  periodical  dislocations,  panics  and  convulsions. 
I  cite,  therefore,  as  another  illustration  of  my  sub 
ject,  that  vast  and  world-encompassing  interest,  whose 
laws  and  fluctuations  not  only  determine  the  mate 
rial  welfare  of  men,  but  strike  clown  also  into  moral 
obligation  and  the  springs  of  character  ;  commerce, 
which  one  of  the  brilliant  orators  of  Europe  called 
the  "  locomotive  of  principles  ;"  which  always  has  in 
it  a  profounder  significance  than  the  dumb  merchan 
dise  it  handles,  packs,  ships,  and  computes  profits 
on,  —  involving,  as  it  does,  the  eternal  principles  of 
ethics  in  its  exchanges,  —  the  occult  laws  of  politi 
cal  economy  and  celestial  charity  in  its  distribution, 
and  binding  the  tribes  of  the  earth  together  by 
cords  of  mutual  traffic  first,  that  it  may  bind 
them  in  Christian  brotherhood  afterwards.  God's 
strength  has  reared  its  warehouses  in  all  open 
ports,  for  character.  God's  bounty  has  freighted 
its  thousand  holds ;  his  permission  has  loosened  its 
cables  and  slid  its  navies  from  so  many  opposite 
harbors  into  the  expanse  of  so  many  seas ;  his 
steadfastness  has  held  its  anchors  fast ;  his  breath 
has  pressed  its  sails,  and  balanced  its  keels,  and 
hardened  its  masts,  and  pointed  the  needle  of  its 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  93 

compass,  and  braced  the  sinews  of  its  mariners  ;  his 
care  has  made  all  elements  further  it,  —  the  winds 
and  the  fire  to  speed  it,  and,  from  the  hollow  of 
his  own  hand,  has  poured  afresh  forever  the  waters 
that  float  it  ;  God's  nourishment  has  grown  the 
forests  that  have  been  bent  into  its  knees ;  God's 
eye  has  followed  the  track  of  its  every  vessel,  on 
all  oceans  and  straits,  —  in  the  chafings  of  Arctic 
ice,  where  Humanity  has  searched  the  barren  prom 
ontories  for  signals  of  its  lost  explorers,  or  under 
equatorial  skies,  where  it  opens  the  doors  of  both 
the  Indies  to  the  enterprise  of  both  the  continents ; 
— and  all  this,  not  for  mouths,  or  bodies,  or  tax- 
bills,  or  banks,  but  for  the  soul  of  man,  and  be 
cause  he  is  a  social  being. 

Very  largely  we  are  a  commercial  people,  and 
also  an  educated  people.  Need  it  be  told,  then, 
how  human  equity,  human  forbearance,  human  jus 
tice,  human  industry,  human  energy,  get  their  daily 
discipline  in  the  bargainings,  the  partnerships,  the 
commissions,  the  exchanges  of  that  business  ?  how 
God  would  have  men  merchants,  that  they  may 
recognize  the  obligation  of  mercantile  fidelity  as 
surely  as  their  navigation  does  its  magnet  and 
currents ;  keep  their  credit  as  even  as  its  tides ; 
and  open  their  charities  as  wide  as  its  seas  ? 

Then,  when  commercial  disaster  comes, — when   men 


94  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

see  the  walls  of  their  fortunes  closing  in,  and  high- 
built  estates  tumble  and  crash  till  all  confidence 
shakes,  and  starving  multitudes  mourn  the  ruin,  and 
crime  rushes  in  to  snatch  its  guilty  harvest  by  vio 
lence, — when  stout  hearts  fail  for  fear,  and  friends 
look  into  each  other's  faces  only  to  read  there  suspi 
cion  and  alarm, — when  strong  men  go  home  at  night 
to  wake  and  weep,  and  when  capitalists  and  bankers, 
used  to  ease,  and  lovers  of  life,  as  they  turn  their 
locks  in  the  morning,  say,  "  Would  God  it  were 
evening,"  and  meanness  fattens  on  distress,  and 
honor  dreads  loss  of  faith  more  than  loss  of  millions, 
— shall  I  undertake  to  say,  Who  then  speaks,  and 
who  shall  be  still  ?  You  have  heard  the  voice  for 
yourselves.  Time,  and  suffering,  and  thought,  and 
prayer,  slowly  offer  the  interpretation ;  and  this 
they  say  plainly,  —  that  God's  Providence  is  the 
preceptor,  and  character  the  lesson. 

V.  There  are  local  forms  of  Society.  The  most 
imposing  of  these,  a  representative  of  all  the  rest, 
the  structure  that  commerce  builds,  is  a  great  city. 
Not  more  true  is  it  that  since  the  days  of  Nine 
veh,  Phoenicia,  Tyre,  Carthage,  the  wary  eyes  of 
statesmen  and  political  economists  have  always  been 
fixed  on  metropolitan  peoples  as  the  springs  and 
seats  of  political  movement,  than  that  the  eye  of 
moral  insight  sees  there  the  most  vivid  and  thrill- 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  95 

ing  encounter  of  all  the  forces  of  humanity.  Stretch 
ing  out  the  tentacula  of  its  traffic,  till,  in  coarser  or 
finer  filaments,  they  encircle  the  globe  ;  fed,  through 
port  and  avenue,  by  every  climate ;  ornamented  by 
the  ingenuity  of  every  country's  genius ;  bearing  no 
blade  of  grass,  yet  piling  wealth  to  the  sky  ;  an 
swering  with  quick,  responsive  sympathies  to  every 
exciting  breath  that  stirs  anywhere  the  air  of  the 
world,  remember,  that  tumultuous  mass  of  life,  con 
gregated,  multitudinous,  is  yet  made  up  of  individ 
ual  units,  —  souls  that  the  whole  is  strengthening 
or  corrupting,  sanctifying  or  cursing,  for  eternity. 
What  the  curious  gazer  beholds,  wrhen  he  places 
himself  by  the  street-side,  and  watches  the  chang 
ing  faces  that  pass,  in  strange  exhibition,  before 
him,  stamped  each  with  some  new  expression,  - 
with  sorrow  or  a  smile,  with  anxiety  or  cheerful 
ness,  with  thought  or  feeling,  with  listlessness  or 
eagerness,  is  but  an  emblem  of  all  the  city  is  and 
represents.  As  there  are  light-hearted  and  laughing 
companies  following  hard  upon  funeral  processions ; 
as  disease  walks  arm  in  arm  with  health,  and 
wretchedness  in  rags  marches  in  locked  steps  with 
luxury,  —  so  in  the  deep  reality  of  the  spirit.  By 
contrasts  and  conflicts  like  these,  in  your  palaces, 
your  decent  dwellings,  your  dens, — in  your  decorat 
ed  paganism  and  your  impoverished  glory, — in  the 


96  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

gorgeous  temple  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican's 
holier  corner,  God  visits  you  every  morning  and 
tries  you  every  moment,  besets  you  literally  be 
hind  and  before,  and  lays  his  hand  upon  you. 

"  Let  me  move  slowly  through  the  street, 

Filled  with  an  everlasting  train, 
Amid  the  sound  of  steps  that  beat 
The  murmuring  walks,  like  autumn  rain. 

"  Youth,  with  pale  cheek  and  slender  frame, 

And  dreams  of  greatness  in  thine  eye, 
Goest  thou  to  build  an  early  name, 
Or  early  in  thy  tasks  to  die  ? 

u  Keen  son  of  trade,  with  eager  brow, 

Who  is  now  fluttering  in  thy  snare  ? 

Thy  golden  fortunes, — tower  they  now, 

Or  melts  the  glittering  shape  in  air  ? 

"Who  of  this  crowd,  to-night,  shall  tread 
The  dance  till  daylight  gleams  again? 
Who  sorrow  o'er  the  untimely  dead  ? 
Who  writhe,  themselves,  in  mortal  pain  ? 

"  Each,  where  his  tasks  or  pleasures  call, 
They  pass  and  heed  each  other  not. 
There  is  Who  heeds,  who  holds  them  all, 
In  his  large  love  and  boundless  thought. 

"  These  struggling  tides  of  life  that  seem 

In  shifting,  aimless  course  to  tend, 
Are  eddies  of  the  mighty  stream 
That  rolls  to  its  predestined  end."* 

*  Bryant. 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  97 

Yes  ;  that  busy  human  hive  is  more  than  a 
master-piece  of  superb  mercantile  mechanism  ;  more 
than  a  facility  of  subsistence,  show  and  gain ;  more 
than  a  vast  hotel  for  the  migrating  trains  that 
people  and  till  the  hemispheres.  It  is  a  discipline 
of  human  souls.  For  still,  "  at  the  entry  of  the 
city,  Wisdom  cries,  '  Unto  you,  0  man,  I  call.'  ' 

The  question,  so  much  debated,  between  ihe 
moral  advantages  or  securities,  on  the  whole,  of 
city  and  country,  is  capable  of  no  conclusion, — be 
cause  the  two  are  not  in  the  relations  of  an  alter 
native,  but  are  needful  parts  of  a  complete  variety. 
For  instance,  refinement,  which  is  best  bred  in  met 
ropolitan  manners,  because  of  the  observation,  oppor 
tunity,  and  examples  not  possibly  accumulated  else 
where,  is  an  actual  good.  So  is  a  certain  reserved 
individuality,  held  in  a  forcible  and  contemplative 
equipoise,  an  actual  good ;  and  that  is  best  bred 
off  the  pavements.  Men's  reasonings  in  this  mat 
ter  are  very  apt  to  run  according  to  their  tastes, 
and  so  their  conclusions  represent  only  their  pref 
erences.  It  is  said,  for  example,  that  the  rural 
attachment  and  bond  to  the  soil  is  a  source  of 
the  spirit  of  liberty :  but,  on  the  other  hand,  his 
tory  seems  to  show  that  independence  of  prescrip 
tion  and  prerogative  has  often  broken  out,  and  held 

sway,   in    commercial   cities ;     while    we,    as    descend- 

7 


98  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

ants  from  a  British  ancestry,  know  something  of 
the  tenacity  and  arrogance  of  a  landed  aristocracy. 
Considering  the  absence  of  interruption  and  mix 
ture,  it  has  been  naturally  alleged  that  country 
life  is  favorable  to  profound  reflection,  and  the 
thorough  assimilating  of  whatever  knowledge  is  ac 
quired.  But  then  it  is  found  that  in  order  to 
this  effect  the  prior  condition  of  mental  activ 
ity  is  necessary ;  and  a  purely  agricultural  commu 
nity  almost  always  grows  heavy  and  stolid  in  a 
few  generations  unless  it  is  quickened  and  stirred 
by  some  contact  with  great  centres.  Then,  it  is 
just  as  true,  and  indeed  it  is  proverbial,  how  the 
too  imitative  and  too  luxurious  and  too  superficial 
propensities  of  most  cities  require  that  the  stock 
of  native  vigor  and  moral  earnestness  should  be 
often  replenished  from  the  unworn  energy  of  the 
fields  and  the  mountains.  The  inference  is  not 
obscure.  Each  of  these  scenes  has  its  own  faults, 
limitations,  and  depravities.  And  in  the  complete 
structure  of  civilization,  where  producing,  carrying, 
modifying  the  raw  material,  or  manufacturing  and 
exchanging,  are  the  great  modes  of  the  public 
economy,  social  wants  and  supplies  spring  up  in 
both,  which  are  naturally  adapted  to  each  other. 

VI.    We    might    take,     as     another     instance,    the 
popular   assembly.      Who    that,    in   periods    of    public 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  99 

emotion,  has  stood  in  a  crowded  congregation  and 
felt  the  enthusiasm  kindle,  mounting  sometimes  to 
frenzy,  as  sympathies  spring  and  react,  glow  and 
rise,  are  reflected,  reverberated,  redoubled ;  who 
that  has  marked  their  effect  not  only  on  forensic 
eloquence  but  on  practical  enterprises,  from  the 
days  of  the  Athenian  agora  to  our  modern  plat 
forms  ;  who  that  has  watched  their  fearful  ap 
proaches  to  revolutionary  terror  and  insurrection 
ary  demonism,  as  they  degenerate  from  deliberative 
counsel  to  the  riot  and  the  mob,  —  needs  be  told 
how  often  humanity  in  the  individual  is  the  ready 
pupil  of  humanity  in  the  mass  ? 

VII.  Indeed,  the  whole  of  that  power  in  commu 
nities  that  is  named  public  opinion,  is  one  of  the 
most  significant  exhibitions  of  the  social  sentiment 
in  its  action  on  the  citizen.  It  is  the  accumulated 
pressure  of  an  aggregate,  bearing  down  on  each  of 
the  constituents.  What  we  call  fashion,  in  all  its 
forms,  is  only  a  kind  of  dramatizing  of  public 
opinion,  -  -  the  average  preference  dominating  the 
personal  judgment,  or  giving  a  momentum  to  in 
difference.  Mighty  for  beneficence  when  it  is  in 
the  right,  it  is  just  as  mighty  for  mischief  when 
perverted.  It  is  a  sifter  of  the  stuff  men  are 
made  of.  If  it  crooks  the  supple  hinges  of  many 
knees,  it  finds  others  whose  sinews  cannot  be  bent, — 


100  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

only  their  bread  withheld,  or  their  blood  spilt;  and 
then  the  next  age  crowns  them  as  its  heroes.  If 
it  entices  some  to  put  their  principles  into  the 
market,  so  it  meets  others  not  saleable  at  any 
price,  who  say  to  its  seductions,  "  Get  thee  behind 
me,  Satan,"  and  are  lifted  up  thereby  at  once,  and 
have  angels  come  and  minister  to  them.  Even 
where  there  is  no  "  divinity  hedging  about  the 
person  of  a  king,"  there  is  the  patronage  of  a  ma 
jority  for  the  ambitious,  the  bait  of  popularity,  the 
charm  of  favoring  winds, — 'tests  of  positive  man 
hood.  Then,  when  policy  and  self-interest  have 
stolen  the  livery  of  Justice  and  Patriotism, — when 
the  sordid  greed  for  place  hath  conceived  and 
brought  forth  every  civil  sin,  —  when  the  rule  of 
political  proceeding  is  to  put  certain  labelled  candi 
dates  in,  right  or  wrong,  and  to  keep  certain 
branded  candidates  out,  wrong  or  right, — then  is 
the  time  for  individual  virtue  to  prove  its  breed 
ing,  for  good  men  to  stand  forth,  for  brave  men 
to  breast  the  current ;  then  shall  ye  discern  be 
tween  him  that  serveth  God  and  him  that  serveth 
him  not.  By  the  very  pressure  of  its  own  perils. 
Society  reconstructs  its  own  order. 

We    gather,   now,   the    general    tendency   of    these 
several     illustrations    of     our    main    proposition,   that 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  101 

Society  is  a  Discipline  of  Individual  Character, 
and  thus  an  agent  of  the  Divine  Disposition,— 
as  we  have  noticed  them  in  various  forms  of 
Social  Life,  —  the  family,  the  relation  of  employer 
and  employed,  the  general  intercourse  of  company, 
commerce,  a  city,  a  public  assembly,  and  popular 
opinion.  In  each  of  these  fields  we  have  sought 
examples  of  two  great  laws,  viz.,  a  reciprocal  re 
lation  and  inter-dependence  of  all  social  and  per 
sonal  life,  with  a  reflex  effect  of  all  outward 
moral  action  on  the  soul  that  produces  it.* 

It  will  naturally  and  practically  conclude  this 
survey,  if  you  will  bring  before  you  some  single 
soul's  history,  to  witness  how  its  career  is  wrought 
out,  and  its  moral  elements  are  mingled,  by  its 
immersion  in  the  social  atmosphere,  and  its  giving 
and  taking  with  other  persons.  Start  with  it  at 
its  starting-point.  See  how  it  gathered  from  pa 
rents,  from  brothers  and  sisters,  from  playmates, 
from  school-companions,  from  neighbors,  from  all  the 
faces  it  met,  from  all  the  talk  it  heard,  from  all 
the  temperatures  that  burnt  or  chilled  it.  It  is 

*  "  Things  have  no  society,  or  capacity  of  social  relations.  In 
mere  nature,  considered  as  a  mere  scheme  of  cause  and  effect,  there  is 
nothing  social,  any  more  than  there  is  in  the  members  of  a  steam  en 
gine.  Love,  benefit,  sympathy,  injury,  hatred,  thanks,  blame,  charac 
ter,  worship,  faith,  all  that  constitutes  the  reality  of  Society,  l>elong  to 
the  fact  that  we  are  consciously  powers." — BUSHNEUK.?'*  ;~_ 


102  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

often  lamented,  what  a  diffusive  pestilence  has 
crept  out  upon  our  English  literature,  and  into 
thousands  of  private  lives,  from  the  looser  pages 
of  one  unprincipled  genius.  But  few  who  deplore 
Byron's  terribly  prostituted  faculty,  go  behind  his 
own  morbid,  misanthropic  sensuality,  to  watch  the 
moulding  influence  of  the  passionate,  unscrupulous 
mother  who  first  woke  the  fury  in  his  bosom. 
The  unfeeling  taunts  of  her  mortified  vanity  at 
one  physical  deformity  in  his  person,  her  bitter 
sarcasms,  her  angry  maledictions,  dropped  on  his 
susceptible  childhood,  in  the  retirements  of  their 
home,  like  poison  on  a  plant,  and  the  corroded 
germ  shot  into  a  baleful  manhood,  blighting  the 
world's  purity  far  more  than  it  beautified  its  po 
etry.  There  is  no  exhausting  the  capacity  of  charac 
ter  to  take  the  mould  of  every  social  type  it  meets. 
Whatever  human  stuff  we  touch  cleaves  to  our  fin 
gers.  If  it  is  the  pitch  of  sin,  we  are  defiled.  If 
it  is  the  alabaster-box  of  precious  virtues,  we  carry 
the  fragrant  anointing  to  our  burial.  So  we  "  build 
each  other  up."  Every  living  soul  you  ever  met, 
since  your  mother  bent  over  your  new-born  life,  has 
wrought  its  effect, — slight,  unseen,  imperceptible,  very 
often,  yet  blessing  or  blasting, — on  your  being  and 
your  destiny. 

The    shadows   of    apostles,    passing   by,    shed    their 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  103 

silent  virtue  on  the  sick  laid  by  the  wayside. 
Some  nameless  influence,  be  it  inspiration,  be  it 
temptation,  has  gone  out  from  your  least  conscious 
hours,  and  by  word,  by  look,  by  tone,  by  gesture, 
by  repulsion  or  attraction,  by  stimulus  or  depression, 
has  altered  and  shaped  in  its  little  measure  every 
child,  man,  woman,  you  ever  knew.  Most  terrible 
trust !  "  If  thou  knewest,"  exclaims  Richter,*  "  that 
every  black  thought  of  thine,  or  every  glorious  inde 
pendent  one,  separated  itself  from  thy  soul,  and 
took  root  outside  of  thee,  and  for  half  a  century," 
—  oh,  infinitely  longer  than  that  !  —  "  pushed  and 
bore  its  poisonous  or  healing  roots,  oh  how  piously 
wouldst  thou  choose  and  think  !" 

The  ancients  assigned  to  the  banks  of  an  imagin 
ary  lake,  lying  at  the  entrance  of  the  veiled  Here 
after,  a  court  of  forty-two  judges,  to  pass  on  the 
fitness  of  the  candidates  for  immortality.  But  our 
God,  who  is  One,  and  a  Spirit,  has  set  Society  it 
self,  in  all  its  countless  members,  for  our  perpetual 
judgment,  by  those  everlasting  principles,  Power, 
Justice,  Goodness,  which  he  has  appointed  Society 
to  embody,  teach,  and  spread.  And  when  the  veil 
of  things  outward,  which  now  partly  obscures  the 
workings  of  these  divine  laws,  shall  finally  be  lifted, 
then  will  rise  up  again  the  long  train  of  spirits, 

*  "  Doctrine  of  Education." 


104  SOCIETY     A     DISCIPLINE 

tempters  or  helpers,  with  accusation,  with  benedic 
tion.  One  will  say,  in  tones  of  sadness  and  ag 
ony  which  no  dramatic  art  can  prophesy,  "  It  was 
of  you  I  learned  my  first  oath,  and  because  of 
you  oaths  afterwards  grew  familiar  to  iny  lips  as 
household  words."  Another,  "  Of  you  I  learned  to 
defile  my  imagination  with  unclean  shapes,  till  the 
pollution  grew  thick  on  my  heart  as  slime  on 
filthy  pools."  Another,  "  But  for  you,  dishonesty 
would  have  been  a  hateful  mystery  to  me  for 
ever ;  your  cunning  seduced  my  honor."  Another, 
"  It  was  }^ou  that,  by  the  exasperating  word, 
spoken  at  the  beginning  of  strife,  and  thence  spin 
ning  its  long  trail  of  vexation  down  the  walls  of 
my  peace,  fretted  my  natural  petulance  into  ungov 
ernable  wrath  and  irretrievable  crime."  Another 
still,  "  Your  worldly  levity  quenched  my  holier 
purposes,  just  when  the  striving  Spirit  was  calling 
me  up  to  consecration  and  to  Christ."  Thus,  by 
the  power  of  our  social  nature,  working  on  with 
rigorous  consistency  to  the  end,  the  very  victims 
of  our  thoughtless  indulgence  come  to  wield  the 
scourges  of  our  retribution.  Shall  it  not  be  that 
some  grateful  soul,  speaking  out  of  the  multitude 
that  no  man  can  number,  having  the  Father's  name 
in  his  forehead,  and  the  new  white  stone  in  his 
hand,  with  the  new  name  that  no  man  knoweth 


OF     INDIVIDUAL     CHARACTER.  105 

saving  he  that  receiveth  it,  shall  say,  "  Praise  be 
to  God !  not  unto  us  :  not,  0  man,  unto  thee  ! 
But  thy  faithful  counsel,  thy  frank  word,  thy 
charitable  deed,  thy  unpretending  prayer,  reached 
after  me,  touched  me,  delivered  me,  inspired  me, 
saved  me?" 

There  is  bondage  in  the  conspiracies  of  sin. 
There  is  freedom  in  the  fellowship  of  the  good. 
Out  of  the  one  the  soul  goes  leprous,  like  Miriam, 
pale  with  the  ghastly  disorder  of  guilt.  From  the 
other  it  goes,  as  from  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration, 
clothed  with  light  falling  from  the  saintly  glory 
of  Moses  and  Elias.  And  if  He  who  is  greater 
than  Moses,  and  has  more  than  the  spirit  and 
power  of  Elias,  has  been  found  there,  then,  in  the 
homes  and  hospitalities  of  Society,  God  will  have 
made  his  tabernacles  with  men,  and,  disciplined  by 
their  heavenly  economy,  individual  man  will  render 
back  his  noble  contributions  to  the  spiritual  wealth 
of  the  world. 


LECTURE    IV. 

SOCIETY   A    SCHOOL   OF    MUTUAL   HELP. 

IN  treating  Human  Society  as  a  method  of  di 
vine  discipline  for  individual  character,  we  adverted, 
among  other  bearings  of  that  subject,  to  the  energy 
and  diversity  of  action  into  which  the  social  princi 
ple  unfolds  the  affections.  Leading  out  of  that  line 
of  thought,  yet  distinct  enough  from  it  to  justify  a 
separate  discussion,  is  the  doctrine  of  mutual  assist 
ance.  The  Father  of  men  has  so  related  the  vari 
ous  parts  and  pursuits  and  interests  of  Society,  that 
they  move  forward  to  the  best  fulfilment  of  all  their 
several  objects,  and  wind  together  into  the  most  ma 
jestic  harmonies,  in  proportion  as  they  act  and  react, 
with  reciprocal  ministries  of  good,  upon  each  other. 
No  aspect  of  our  human  kind  yields  ampler  or 
brighter  proofs  of  God's  intentions  than  this. 

It  is  a  matter  of  simple  observation,  and  very  fa 
miliar,  that  wherever  a  number  of  people  are  thrown 
together  for  a  common  object,  even  for  a  short  pe 
riod,  in  such  conditions  that  the  entertainment  of 
each  depends  directly  upon  the  good-will  of  the 


108  SOCIETY    A    SCHOOL 

whole,  there  acquaintance  ripens  fast,  and  friends  for 
life  are  made  in  a  day.  Parties  of  pleasure  at  the 
sea-shore,  companies  of  fellow-travellers  on  a  long 
journey,  where  the  conventional  forms  are  waived  for 
the  sake  of  immediate  enjoyment,  put  all  our  tedious 
drawing-room  etiquette,  and  our  elaborate  apparatus 
of  ceremonial  intercourse, — as  a  means,  i.  e.,  of  get 
ting  human  hearts  together, — into  the  shade,  at  once. 
The  same  effect  accrues  wherever  people  are  assem 
bled,  on  the  sudden  outbreak  of  some  peril  or  actual 
calamity.  An  unexpected  joy,  or  'escape,  if  it  were 
only  vivid  enough  to  tear  through  the  prevailing 
crust  of  formality,  would  serve  just  as  well.  There 
is,  it  is  true,  a  tradition  of  a  French  master  of  man 
ners,  who  apologized  for  letting  another  gentleman 
drown  before  his  eyes  without  offering  the  assistance 
that  would  easily  have  saved  him,  because  such  an 
interference  would  have  been  a  breach  of  politeness, 
as  he  had  never  had  the  pleasure  of  being  introduced 
to  that  gentleman's  acquaintance, — an  instance  of  the 
detriment  man  takes  from  his  artificial  conventions. 
But,  exceptions  apart,  those  occurrences  that  act 
powerfully  on  the  strong  emotions  in  us,  break  up 
reserve  and  draw  and  bind  people  together.  It 
results  from  the  law  that  a  community  of  feeling 
in  the  greater  interest  of  Humanity,  supersedes  the 
discrimination  and  separation  in  the  less.  And  it  is 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  109 

only  a  more  salient  illustration  of  that  underlying 
bond  of  mutual  dependency  and  assistance  which 
runs  through  the  constitution  of  man,  and  links 
into  one  all  the  members  of  the  social  body. 

I  say  all  the  members.  For,  in  considering  So 
ciety  as  we  do  now,  it  is  the  very  beauty  of  the 
truth  before  us  that  it  takes  up  every  individual 
specimen  of  the  race.  It  includes  the  least  noticed, 
the  least  active,  the  most  obscure.  It  gathers  in 
the  unreckoned  and  latent  forces  of  humanity, — 
not  merely  a  few  conspicuous  persons,  or  a  privi 
leged  class.  A  French  writer  estimates  that  of  the 
thirty-six  millions  of  that  nation,  only  ten  millions 
really  enter  into  the  ideas  that  lie  at  the  founda 
tion  of  the  government, — the  rest  being  indifferent. 
The  proportion  will  vary  among  the  nations.  But 
these  outlying  masses  are  not  omitted  from  the 
contemplation  of  the  principle  of  mutual  assistance 
before  us.  Politics  may  overlook  them ;  God  never. 
All  are  still  members  of  Society,  and  are  acting 
and  reacting  on  one  another.  More  or  less  freely, 
more  or  less  blindly,  more  or  less  unconsciously, 
they  are  working  together  for  each  other's  relief 
and  furtherance, — since  God  is  working  over  and 
within  them  all.  Social  perfection  is  not  merely  a 
bending  of  others'  wills  to  our  own.  nor  yet 
merely  a  sacrifice  of  ours  to  theirs.  It  is  a  sub- 


110  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

ordination  of  all  beside  to  the  highest  end  of  the 
whole,  —  not  the  greatest  happiness  but  the  great 
est  goodness  of  all.  And  it  is  towards  that.,  only 
by  slow,  stumbling,  and  often  painful  steps,  not 
without  occasional  retrogradations  of  tyranny  and 
hatred,  that  God  has  appointed  Society  to  make 
its  way. 

Notice  that  the  principle  continues  to  operate, 
whether  individual  dispositions  conform  to  it  con 
sciously,  or  consciously  rebel  at  it.  As  was  said 
before,  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  personal 
liberty  of  choice.  The  original  design  may  be 
thwarted,  but  never  baffled.  Somebody  resists,  and 
goes  down.  The  eternal  Thought  moves  on,  undis 
turbed  and  sublime.  If  then  we  see  the  social 
design  slowly  and  steadily  fulfilled,  in  spite  of  the 
selfish  opposition,  if  the  social  laws  hold  out,  over 
bearing,  in  the  long  run,  private  plans,  it  is  only 
a  more  signal  attestation  of  the  ruling  mind  of  the 
Maker. 

Without  a  very  formal  division,  the  fields  from 
which  I  shall  seek  my  principal  instances,  in  the 
discussion  and  application  of  the  great  principle, 
will  be  those  of  the  benevolent  sympathies,  the 
relations  of  sex,  productive  industry,  the  trades, 
nations. 

Let   us?   at    the    outset,   test   the    doctrine,    in   two 


OF     MUTUAL    HELP.  Ill 

extreme  cases :  one  a  social  relation  where  the  two 
parties  present  the  least  that  is  mutual  in  appear 
ance  or  in  condition,  which  is  casual,  and  may  some 
time  pass  away  altogether ;  the  other  a  relation 
which  is  as  permanent  as  the  race,  essential  to 
the  species,  but  where  the  very  organic  character 
of  the  distinction  creates  a  peculiar  difficulty  in 
adjusting  the  rule  of  reciprocity.  I  mean,  first,  the 
relation  of  helpless  penury  to  property ;  secondly, 
the  relation  of  woman  to  man. 

If  there  is  any  class  where  the  law  fails,  we 
should  probably  say,  at  first  thought,  it  must  be 
among  the  poor,  who  seem  to  have  nothing  to 
give  back  for  what  they  receive.  Indeed,  we  have 
a  curious  evidence  of  that  fallacy  in  our  use  of 
language  ;  for  we  call  those  who  take  the  gift 
beneficiaries,  as  if  the  only  benefit  were  with  them. 
Arrayed  in  fashion's  costume,  out  of  fortune's  ward 
robe,  wheeling  our  luxurious  couches  up  to  the 
blazing  grate  of  a  winter's  night,  we  discourse 
complacently  and  self-righteously  of  the  annoying 
mendicants  that  will  come  beggared  to  our  gates, 
—of  their  frauds,  lies,  impositions, — forgetting  that 
as  many  frauds  and  lies  and  impositions  went, 
first  and  last,  possibly,  to  the  furnishing  of  our 
handsome  apartments,  or  may  be  seen  and  heard 
by  the  Almighty  inside  of  them ;  forgetting,  also. 


112  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

that  we  owe  gratitude  and  favor  to  these  wretched 
creatures  who  wait  for  our  mercy,  because  they 
call  up  a  momentary  thrill  of  pity  in  our  world- 
bound  hearts,  and  so  save  us  from  the  very  bar 
barism  of  prosperity.  Yes  :  the  rich  have  to  thank 
the  poor,  with  just  as  much  reason  as  the  poor 
the  rich.  Character  is  moulded  into  its  best  pro 
portions  as  much  by  what  is  done  for  others,  as 
by  what  is  taken  from  them.  It  is  mutual  help. 
Indeed,  this  is  the  test  that  discriminates  all  alms 
givings  :  do  they  benefit  one  party  only,  or  both  ? 
do  they  only  feed  and  clothe  starvation's  body, 
or  the  giver's  spirit  as  wrell  ?  Is  not  your  soul  as 
likely  to  starve  from  selfishness,  as  the  beggar's 
body  for  want  of  bread  ?  There  are  poorer  men 
than  I  am,  to  the  end  that  I  may  make  myself 
freely  poorer  for  their  sake ;  and  that  will  be  my 
most  godlike  privilege. *  Taking  from  me  earthly 
things,  they  pour  back  spiritual  things.  Taking 
clothing  or  food,  they  give  patience,  cheerfulness, 
love,  faith,  and  a  powrer  to  bear  my  own  crosses. 
Every  poor  child,  really  in  want,  or  ignorant,  that 
ever  stretched  out  a  hand  to  you  for  help,  has 
been  a  part  of  God's  discipline  with  you.  He  has 
exercised  a  divine  ministry  upon  you.  Before  God 
you  can  never  be  again  as  if  that  slender,  suppli- 

*  2  Corinthians,  viii.  9. 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  113 

eating  arm  had  not  once  been  lifted  in  your  path. 
It  will  come  back,  in  the  strange  quickenings  of 
memory,  in  fever,  or  midnight,  or  the  last  judg 
ment.  A  debt  rose  up  upon  you ;  and  better  or 
worse  you  will  be  —  better  you  were  meant  to  be 
—  for  eternity.  I  think  you  all  must  have  noticed 
that  persons  who  spent  much  time  in  really  and 
heartily  helping  others  had  their  moral  eyesight 
purified  and  even  their  intellect  brightened.  Their 
whole  nature  grows  firm,  and  calm,  and  vigorous, 
and  wise.  By  the  expansion  their  presence  thus 
gives  to  our  moral  horizon,  a  needy  family,  first 
entangling  our  sympathies  in  their  straitened  lot, 
set  our  feet  finally  in  a  larger  place,  and  become 
our  richest  creditors.  Lazarus  comes  a  prophet  of 
regeneration  to  Dives'  gate.  Penury  preaches  sal 
vation  from  its  ragged  pulpit,  in  the  name  of  him 
who  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  and  who, 
in  his  own  blessed  person,  made  poverty  sacred 
forever.  Silver  and  gold  these  children  of  a  new 
apostleship  have  not,  but  none  the  less  it  may  be 
a  gate  called  "  Beautiful"  where  we  meet  them,  for 
they  loosen  and  uplift  our  crippled  affections,  and 
we  too  go  healed,  leaping  and  walking  and  prais 
ing,  to  the  temple. 

Again,  both  the    friendly  design  of  nature,  and  the 
gross   contempt  of  it   by   false   philanthropy,  are  pro- 


114  SOCIETY    A    SCHOOL 

nounced  with  particular  emphasis  in  the  case  of  the 
most  permanent,  marked  and  indispensable  of  all  the 
social  distinctions  of  the  Human  Race — that  of  the 
two  sexes.  Here,  again,  see  the  social  balance,  in  its 
most  striking  shape,  —  variety  of  constitution,  with 
unity  of  moral  design, — a  mutuality.  That  woman 
is  not  yet  fulfilling  her  whole  rightful  work  in  the 
social  economy,  is  obvious  to  common  sense.  The 
real  relative  rights  of  the  two  sexes  will  be  set 
tled,  only  when  each  enjoys  the  liberty  of  unfolding 
and  exercising  its  own  peculiar  character,  whatever 
it  may  be,  suffering  no  obstruction  or  hindrance 
from  the  other.  Now,  the  whole  group  of  human 
faculties,  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual — make  what 
enumeration  or  classification  of  them  you  please — 
unquestionably  belong  to  both  these  sexes.  The  dif 
ference  is  in  their  relative  proportions  and  adjust 
ments.  And  the  reason  of  that  difference  must  have 
been  the  balance  and  harmony  of  <  unlike  powers,  pre 
vailing  throughout  creation.  Of  course,  you  realize 
nature's  intention,  not  by  approximating  to  mascu 
line  women,  or  feminine  men,  but  by  giving  each 
sex  its  own  distinctive  place,  and  developing  each 
to  the  greatest  capacity  in  itself,  and  the  greatest 
help  of  the  other.  In  that  distinction  of  relative 
proportions,  the  distinguishing  faculty  of  the  male  sex 
is  mental  concentration ;  that  of  the  female  is  moral 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  115 

impulse.  Woman,  when  she  is  truly  tvomanly,  car 
ries  her  special  strength  in  her  heart;  man,  when 
he  is  truly  manly,  carries  his  strength  in  his  head. 
Neither  monopolizes  the  special  department ;  but,  by 
eminence,  he  is  reason,  she  is  love.  Woman,  how 
ever  powerfully  she  may  think — and  in  some  in 
stances  she  will  think  more  powerfully  than  man — 
is  the  representative  of  affection.  Man,  however 
ardently  and  constantly  he  may  love — and  in  some 
instances  he  will  love  more  ardently  and  more  con 
stantly  than  woman — is  the  representative  of  thought. 
If  any  of  us  think  this  discrimination  gives  any  ad 
vantage  to  man,  it  is  only  because  we  are  not  yet 
Christian  enough  to  acknowledge  that  spirit  is  grander 
than  intellect,  holiness  wiser  than  logic,  the  human 
heart  deeper  and  nobler  than  the  head. 

But  the  point  here  is,  that  each  is  really  most 
honored,  most  advanced,  most  benefitted,  exactly 
when  the  other  is ;  so  that  the  whole  debate  about 
their  respective  "  rights,"  or,  worse  yet,  their  com 
parative  merits,  becomes  both  unphilosophical  and 
vulgar.  The  simple  constitution  of  their  being, — 
the  primitive  record  of  God's  creative  act,  "male  and 
female  created  he  them,'1  ought  to  have  foreclosed, 
forever,  that  impertinent  strife.  Whichever  way  the 
controversy  should  be  decided,  the  decision  would  be 
wrong.  You  might  as  well  inquire  which  of  any 


116  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

two  of  the  great  essential  elements  of  existence,  or 
laws  of  matter,  is  most  important.  You  might  as 
well  ask,  respecting  any  of  those  grand  dualities, 
between  which  the  sublime  order  of  nature  is  poised 
and  unity  is  held  fast,  which  could  best  be  spared. 
You  might  as  well  discuss  the  comparative  merits 
of  morning  and  evening,  of  the  bones  and  the  blood, 
of  the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces,  of  the  sys 
tole  and  diastole  of  the  heart,  of  the  negative  and 
positive  electrical  poles,  of  the  green  of  the  earth 
and  the  blue  of  the  sky.  Each  holds  its  title  by 
the  ordaining  of  a  divine  plan  ;  and  the  displacement 
of  either  from  its  sphere  would  be  a  resolution  of 
the  system  into  chaos.  The  whole  dispute  is  a  mon 
strous  anomaly,  conceived  in  an  unnatural  jealousy, 
protracted  by  an  insane  insurrection  against  good 
manners,  and  sure  to  end  in  nothing  but  a  profane 
putting  asunder  of  what  God  hath  joined  together. 
For  wherever  either  sex  is  truly  best,  strongest,  hap 
piest,  there  the  other  must  be.* 


*  "  A  family, — than  which  there  is  no  more  genuine  type  of  nature's 
method  of  arrangement, — is  throughout  a  combination  of  opposites  ; 
the  woman  depending  on  the  man,  whose  very  strength,  however, 
exists  only  by  her  weakness  5  the  child  hanging  on  the  parent,  whose 
power  were  no  blessing,  were  it  not  compelled  to  stoop  in  gentleness  ; 
the  brother  protecting  the  sister,  whose  affections  would  have  but  half 
their  wealth,  were  they  not  brought  to  lean  on  him  with  trustful  pride  : 
and  even  among  seeming  equals,  the  impetuous  quieted  by  the  thought- 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  117 

Proceed  now  to  observe  some  of  the  external 
methods  and  instruments  of  the  mutual  social  assist 
ance.  Perhaps  the  most  common  are  the  produc 
tive  pursuits  and  every-day  labors  of  men.  There 
again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sexes,  it  is  by  the 
law  of  social  diversity,  reciprocity,  and  balance,  that 
the  grandest  results  are  worked  out. 

ful,  and  the  timid  finding  shelter  with  the  brave.  That  there  *  are 
diversities  of  gifts'  is  the  reason  why  there  '  is  one  spirit :'  and  it  is 
because  one  is  reliable  for  knowledge,  and  another  for  resolve,  and  a 
third  for  the  graces  of  a  balanced  mind,  that  all  are  held  in  the  bonds 
of  a  pure  aft'ection. 

"  The  same  principle  distinguishes  natural  society  from  artificial  asso 
ciation.  The  former,  springing  from  the  impulse  of  human  feeling, 
brings  together  elements  that  are  unlike  :  the  latter,  directed  to  specific 
ends,  combines  the  like.  The  one,  completing  defect  by  redundance, 
and  compensating  redundance  by  defect,  produces  a  real  and  living 
unity  ;  the  other,  multiplying  a  mere  fraction  of  life  by  itself,  retires 
further  and  further  from  any  integral  good,  and  results  only  in  exag 
gerated  partiality.  I  do  not  suppose  that  society  arises,  as  some  phi 
losophers  represent,  from  the  sense  of  individual  weakness,  and  the 
desire  for  consolidated  strength  ;  but,  it  must  be  owned,  the  instinctive 
propensities  of  mankind  create  nearly  the  same  natural  classes  as  if  it 
were  so.  So  long  as  personal  qualities  and  spontaneous  attractions 
determine  the  sorting  of  mankind,  they  will  dispose  themselves  in 
classes,  containing  each,  in  rugged  harmony,  the  elementary  materials 
of  our  humanity.  And  when  discord  arises,  it  is  from  the  presence  of 
too  many  similar  elements,  which  have  no  respect  for  one  another,  no 
mutual  want,  no  reciprocal  helpfulness,  and  which  cannot,  therefore, 
coexist  without  risk  of  dissension.  Say  what  you  will,  nature  is  no 
democrat,  but  filled  throughout  with  ranks;  and  it  is  only  in  propor 
tion  as  we  recede  from  the  natural  affections,  and  enter  upon  the  life 
of  isolated  self-will,  that  dreams  of  social  equality  take  place  of  the 
reality  of  social  obedience." — REV.  JAMES  MARTIXEAU. 


118  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

The  same  principle  holds  of  professions  and  trades 
as  of  persons.  These  pursuits  enter  into  their  "holy 
alliance"  when  they  blend  the  two  aims, — to  improve 
themselves  and  help  one  another.  "  The  carpenter 
encourages  the  blacksmith,  and  he  that  smootheth 
with  the  hammer  him  that  smites  the  anvil."  While 
men  and  women  are  Good  Samaritans,  it  never  was 
meant  that  their  employments  should  be  priests  and 
Levites,  nor  trippers  and  pirates.  The  common 
wealth  is  not  served,  till  the  different  branches  of 
industry  merge  their  jealousies  in  good-will. 

The  very  composition  of  the  earth  we  walk  over 
offers  a  strong  hint  of  this  intention.  You  read  it 
in  the  beautiful  balancings  of  clouds  and  tides,  the 
equations  of  astronomy,  the  adjustments  of  growths 
and  climate, — all  the  musical  accord  by  which  the 
Divine  Spirit  has  attuned  his  creation  to  an  ever 
lasting  anthem.  Sky  and  water,  vapor  and  vege 
tation,  earth  and  sun,  are  ever  friendly  and  hos 
pitable  ;  they  are  perpetually  running  on  some 
missionary  errand  in  each  other's  behalf.  Their 
Bureau  of  Benevolence  is  older  than  the  Holy 
College.  The  gates  of  their  hospitality,  like  the 
Bukharian  nobleman's,  are  "nailed  open."  They 
preach  the  creed  of  Brotherhood  in  that  temple 
whose  roof  is  fretted  with  the  stars. 

Indeed,   it   is    most    interesting    to    see    how   liber- 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  119 

ally  the  Creator  has  given  hints  and  illustrations 
of  this  social  principle,  by  his  own  arrangements, 
even  in  what  we  call  the  humbler  departments  of 
his  creation.  For  Society  does  not  stand  apart  from 
Nature,  but  interlinks  its  laws  with  hers.  Very  won 
derful  it  is,  and  very  beautiful,  to  see  how  God 
twines  together,  into  a  system  of  mutual  benefits, 
the  operations  that  different  creatures  carry  on  for 
their  own  advantage,  thus  revealing  his  intention 
that  they  should  be  fellow-helpers, — even  these  dumb 
and  soulless  things.  He  scarcely  lets  any  good  end 
with  the  being  that  produced  it,  but  carries  it  over 
into  some  wider  usefulness.  He  pushes  out  the 
doings  of  each  animal  and  person  into  results  that 
help  other  animals  and  other  persons.  The  silk 
worm,  with  no  thought  of  a  charity,  spins  for  him 
self  an  elaborate  and  complicated  coffin,  to  hold  the 
chrysalis,  till  its  resurrection  with  wings.  But  the 
strands  of  that  delicate  fabric,  the  ingenuity  of  man 
winds  off  into  the  material  of  his  costliest  and  most 
durable  vestures.  Coral  insects  build  their  reefs  with 
the  slow  toil  of  ages,  not  certainly  as  philanthro 
pists,  but  simply  by  the  instinct  that  bids  living 
things  provide  a  habitation.  Yet  they  are  all  the 
time  laying  the  foundations  of  islands  that  men  will 
sometime  inhabit,  when  overpopulated  continents  shall 
send  out  their  swarming  colonies,  and  thus  God 


120  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

"layeth  the  beams  of  his  chambers  in  the  waters." 
The  spider  weaves  a  web,  out  in  the  air,  for  cer 
tain  economical  purposes  of  his  own.  But  God 
bathes  it  overnight  in  drops  of  dew,  and  in  the 
morning  sun  it  hangs  like  a  silver  shield,  with 
miniature  rainbows  for  its  quarterings,  "  a  thing 
of  beauty"  at  which  children  clap  their  hands  with 
rapture,  and  which  every  beauty-loving  passenger  is 
the  better  for.  The  spider  had  no  thought  of  being 
an  artist;  but  the  Creator  made  him  one  to  shed 
delight  unconsciously.  Or  else  Astronomy  stretches 
one  of  these  slender  fibres  across  the  glass  in  her 
telescope  to  mark  the  passage  of  a  star,  and  the 
little  insect  under  a  clover  leaf  gives  a  measuring 
line  to  science  to  tell  the  august  motions  of  the  con 
stellations  of  the  sky. 

So   in   another   and   higher   grade    of  creation. 

When  men  forget  to  help  each  other,  God  over 
rules  their  plans,  and  makes  them  do  it,  to  a  certain 
extent,  in  despite  of  themselves.  He  circumvents 
the  sharpest  calculation,  and  outwits  the  shrewdest 
diplomacy.  He  is  forever  defeating  the  plots  of  self 
ishness.  He  suffers  no  immunities  to  be  strictly  per 
sonal.  It  is  the  settled  policy  of  Providence,  so  to 
speak,  to  break  up  monopolies.  He  regards  always 
the  good,  not  only  of  the  greatest  number,  but  of 
the  whole.  He  allows  no  mortal  to  live  for  himself 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  121 

alone,  however  much  disposed  to.  A  capitalist,  with 
out  the  remotest  intention  of  being  a  public  bene 
factor  perhaps,  founds  a  factory,  to  enlarge  his  private 
fortune.  But  the  enterprise  calls  into  employment 
an  army  of  laborers,  and  the  wages  forestall  their 
starvation.  A  few  men,  in  a  corporation,  as  the  case 
may  be,  build  a  railway,  for  the  sake  of  the  divi 
dends  ;  but  it  becomes  an  immeasurable  facility  of 
travel  and  transportation,  and  while  it  enriches  a  few 
is  a  convenience  to  millions.  An  insurance  office  is 
established  for  the  profit  of  the  stockholders,  or  the 
salary  of  the  officers,  but  it  turns  out  to  be  a 
general  help.  Adventurers  sail  in  search  of  foreign 
gold,  and  dig  it  out  of  the  mud  for  their  own  aggran 
dizement.  But  nature,  with  no  thought  of  that,  uses 
these  precious  ores  to  ease  the  tightened  money 
pressure  and  help  the  finances  of  the  whole 
trading  world.  A  merchant  may,  if  he  will,  hem 
round  his  wealth  by  every  possible  barrier,  shut  it 
up  in  investments,  in  banks,  in  loans  of  exorbitant 
interest ;  let  him  hold  it  with  never  so  desperate  a 
grasp,  some  of  it,  less  or  more,  will  leak  out  and 
run  over  and  get  into  circulation  for  the  general 
good,  lie  must  have  clerks  to  keep  his  growing 
accounts  ;  he  must  have  draymen  to  handle  his  mer 
chandise  ;  he  must  have  factors  and  agents  to  man 
age  his  great  machine,  or  else  it  will  clog  and  break, 


122  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

and  they  must  have  their  share.  He  would  do  it  all 
and  keep  it  all  himself  possibly,  if  he  could,  but 
Providence  has  limited  his  capacity,  given  him  but 
one  pair  of  hands,  a  fixed  faculty  of  attention,  and 
only  twenty-four  hours  to  a  day.  He  must  employ 
operatives ;  he  must  help  his  fellows,  though  it  be 
against  his  will.  If  he  loves  display  and  indulgence, 
then  he  must  support  upholsterers  and  the  markets. 
No  credit  to  him;  but  it  shows  God's  law. 

He  discovers  the  same  law,  historically.  British 
taxation  was  not  meant  to  help  the  American  colo 
nies,  only  to  relieve  the  English  exchequer.  But 
the  spirit  it  roused  has  sent  civilization  forward  with 
a  mightier  impulse  than  it  had  felt  for  ages  before. 
On  the  whole,  the  oppression  proved  a  very  consid 
erable  help,  not  only  to  America  but  to  the  world. 
The  march  of  Alexander's  armies  opened  highways 
across  the  East  in  which  peaceful  industries  and 
improvements  both  followed  and  obliterated  the  de 
vastations  of  war.  Heaven  made  even  the  fierce 
Macedonian  phalanx  the  pioneer  of  Humanity,  and 
used  that  bloody  scourge,  their  leader,  whose  gluttony 
hungered  after  more  worlds  than  one  to  conquer,  as 
a  helper  to  the  oriental  nations.  Vespasian's  Roman 
cohorts,  aflame  with  military  lust,  had  no  idea  of 
spreading  the  mild  faith  of  Christ  or  of  helping 
men;  they  sought  only  to  complete  the  dominion  of 


OF      MUTUAL      HELP. 


123 


the  empire,  when  they  bore  their  victorious  arms  to 
Palestine,  and  planted  their  standards  about  the  holy 
city.  But  that  very  ruin  levelled  the  Temple  wor 
ship,  spread  one  language  for  Truth  to  speak  in, 
and  Christendom  was  helped.  The  downfall  of  the 
Ritual  was  the  inauguration  of  the  Gospel.  The 
hoarse  voice  of  havoc  ended  in  the  gentle  breath 
ing  forth,  all  over  the  eastern  world,  of  the  Mes 
siah's  compassion.  William  of  Normandy  can  hardly 
be  reckoned  among  the  voluntary  helpers  of  Hu 
manity.  He  invaded  England  and  conquered  the 
Saxon,  for  the  love  of  powrer.  But  he  was  made 
an  involuntary  helper.  For  that  invasion  broke  up 
the  old  system  of  vassalage,  introduced  into  English 
society  that  stalwart  middle  class  out  of  which  has 
come  all  that  is  noblest  and  brightest  in  the  national 
character,  —  Magna  Charta,  Parliamentary  Reform, 
Shakespeare's  tragedies,  the  Puritan  Reformation, 
Paradise  Lost,  and  a  commerce  that  belts  the  globe. 
Help  out  of  injury;  this  is  everywhere  the  method 
of  God. 

My  next  position  is,  that  the  same  divine  inten 
tion  is  manifest,  and  the  same  lesson  is  taught,  in 
the  fact  that  throughout  creation  this  system  of 
mutual  assistance  is  made  necessary  from  the  mu 
tual  dependence  that  obtains  everywhere.  Each  de 
pends  on  each,  and  each  on  the  whole.  The 


124  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

several  kingdoms  of  nature  depend  on  and  there 
fore  help  each  other.  The  mineral  is  the  solid 
basis  on  which  is  spread  out  the  vegetable,  —  the 
body  that  its  vesture  clothes.  The  vegetable  di 
rectly  nourishes  the  animal.  The  tree  does  not 
grow  for  itself;  it  cradles  the  birds,  and  feeds 
animated  races,  and  shades  the  traveller  till  he 
blesses  it.  Of  all  the  ninety  thousand  species  of 
plants  that  Botany  has  classified,  not  one,  from 
the  vast  oak  to  the  weed  that  springs  out  of  its 
mould  and  the  moss  that  clings  to  its  bark,  but 
takes  its  appointed  place  in  a  related  family.  The 
atmosphere  would  lose  its  salubrity  but  for  the 
salt  and  bitter  sea.  The  ground  would  catch  no 
fertilizing  streams  if  the  clouds  did  not  kindly 
drop  them  from  the  sky.  The  flowers  wait  for 
the  falling  light  before  they  unveil  their  beauty. 
All  growing  things  are  buttressed  up  by  the  vast 
ribs  of  everlasting  granite  that  sleep  in  sunless 
caverns.  Heat,  electricity,  magnetism,  attraction, 
send  their  subtle  powers  through  nature,  and  play 
through  all  its  works,  as  unseen  and  silent  as  the 
eternal  spirit  they  bear  witness  of.  Everything 
helps.  Everything  is  helped. 

This  dependence,  too,  is  still  more  striking  in 
human  life.  The  trades  exemplify  it.  Precisely 
because  no  one  man  can  reach  perfection  in  all 


OF     MUTUAL    HELP.  125 

the  arts,  and  be  a  proficient  in  every  profession, 
the  progress  of  civilization  requires  the  division  of 
labor ;  not  division  in  the  sense  of  hostility,  but  a 
division  of  works  with  a  common  will, — many  de 
partments  with  one  interest,  "  diversities  of  opera 
tion  with  the  same  spirit."  Not  more  completely 
does  the  wheel  of  the  engine  depend  upon  the 
boiler,  or  the  rod  upon  the  valve,  than  one  indi 
vidual  upon  another  in  the  more  intricate  and 
wondrous  mechanism  of  Society.  Every  business 
reaches  its  perfection  by  the  concentrated  devotion 
of  one  mind ;  and  this  man,  meantime,  must  be 
supported  by  other  pursuits  in  other  hands.  The 
hands  divide,  but  they  are  still  fellow-helpers.  While 
each  toils  at  his  own  bench,  he  is  really  working 
for  all  the  rest,  and  all  the  rest  for  him.  Society 
is  like  a  great  manufacturing  establishment  I  have 
seen,  where  some  hundreds  of  workmen  are  em 
ployed,  yet  the  results  of  the  skill  of  all,  in  all 
departments,  are  combined  and  blended  together  in 
the  product,  which  is  a  musical  instrument.  So 
there  may  be  moral  harmony  out  of  industrial  dis 
tribution.  The  old  fable  of  the  blind  man  and  the 
cripple  is  realized  every  day.  Every  man  has  some 
gift  or  opportunity  that  another  has  not.  Both  the 
blind  and  the  lame  are  helpless  alone.  But  once 
establish  a  mutual  relation  of  dependence  and  help 


126  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

between  them,  and  then  the  blind  man  can  take 
up  the  cripple,  and  the  cripple,  borne  on  his  com 
panion's  shoulders,  is  eyes  to  the  blind.  There  is 
a  profound  meaning  in  this  simple  parable.  Every 
person  in  the  world  is  under  some  infirmity,  — 
blind  or  lame,  —  if  alone.  Would  each  man  carry 
his  own  power  of  usefulness  to  its  highest  pitch, 
with  a  single  will,  but  writh  a  generous  breast, 
then  the  royal  law  of  Society  would  be  fulfilled. 

"  Heaven  forming  each  on  other  to  depend, 
A  master,  or  a  servant,  or  a  friend, 
Bids  each  on  other  for  assistance  call, 
Till  one  man's  weakness  grows  the  strength  of  all." 

We  find  another  impressive  illustration  of  this 
social  interdependence  in  the  fact  that,  as  fast  as 
any  one  productive  pursuit  is  perfected,  the  rest 
incline  to  share  in  the  benefits  of  that  complete 
ness.  Science  helps  art ;  the  arts  help  each  other ; 
machinery  helps  commerce,  and  commerce  helps  lit 
erature.  They  all  prepare  each  other's  tools,  refine 
each  other's  materials,  sharpen  each  other's  wits, 
raise  each  other's  standards,  and,  in  a  thousand 
ways,  multiply  mutual  facilities.  The  surgeon  can 
practice  more  clean  and  skilful  clinics,  if  the  cut 
ler  was  skilful  before  him.  The  chemist  is  in 
debted  to  the  glass-blower,  and  the  glass-blower  to 


OF     MUTUAL    HELP.  127 

the  coal-heaver,  and  the  coal-heaver  to  the  basket- 
maker.  What  were  your  commerce  without  the 
paper-maker  and  the  ship-builder  ?  There  is  no 
kind  of  manufacturing,  and  hardly  a  family,  that 
has  not  reaped  as  substantial  profits  from  the  mod 
ern  elaborations  of  mechanism,  or  of  the  elastic 
gums,  as  the  proprietors  have.  By  better  castings 
in  metals  a  whole  cluster  of  arts  is  set  forward. 
Every  calling  reaches  over  to  drop  a  blessing  on 
its  relatives.  One  prepares  instruments  and  acces 
sories  for  another.  Agriculture  wants  the  college 
for  its  analyses  and  scientific  suggestions.  What  a 
short-sighted  envy,  if  the  farmer  tries  to  embarrass 
and  disendow  the  university !  The  college  wants 
agriculture  for  its  produce,  its  patronage,  its  pupils. 
What  a  vulgar  prejudice,  if  the  collegian  sneers  at 
the  farmer !  How  clearly  God  designs  to  press 
forward  and  upward  all  the  complicated  interests 
of  mankind  together ;  making  each  the  better  for 
the  others,  affording  a  splendid  example  of  his 
own  unifying  providence,  and  making  all  to  crys 
tallize  into  an  orderly  organization,  and  thus  to 
work  out  the  gradual  reconcilement  of  Society. 

So,  if  one  member  suffer,  all  the  members, — not 
only  by  voluntary  sympathy,  but  by  God's  law 
inwrought  in  them, — suffer  with  it.  It  is  said  that 
if  a  milch  cow  breaks  her  leg,  her  milk  instantly 


128  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

loses  its  lime,  which  is  taken  off  to  cement  the 
fracture  and  restore  the  wounded  limb.  Bruise 
or  break  one  limb  of  the  social  body,  and  the 
whole  vital  secretion  grows  thin  and  sour.  At 
the  bottom  all  our  business  is  one.  Down  at  the 
roots  of  the  world  our  roots  all  interlace.  It  is 
one  wide  subsoil  of  humanity  that  sends  up  so 
many  shapes  and  colors,  and  after  all,  with  all  its 
shifting  weather  and  varied  climates,  our  planet 
knows  only  the  experience  of  one  toiling,  throb 
bing,  loving  heart. 

By  bringing  men  together  you  reconcile  them. 
Even  amidst  the  injustices  and  violences  of  slavery, 
the  body-slaves  are  observed  to  be  privileged,  and 
tenderly  treated, — a  certain  power  of  the  human 
quality  breaking  down  the  temper  of  caste  and  the 
barriers  of  pride. 

You  are  shut  up  half  an  hour  in  a  stage-coach, 
or  crowded  into  the  corner  of  a  drawing-room, 
with  the  whig  or  democrat  against  whom  you  were 
just  ready  to  launch,  the  next  morning,  a  bitter 
political  pamphlet ;  and  you  go  home  and  burn  the 
manuscript,  or  at  least  strike  out  the  adjectives, 
and,  ennobled  by  your  humanized  manners,  exult 
in  the  determination  never  again  to  let  party  dif 
ferences  disturb  social  relations.  The  divine  work 
manship  is  nowhere  self-contradictory.  History  is 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  129 

God's  discourse,  as  Society  is  his  living  illustration, 
and  the  conclusion  never  contradicts  the  exordium. 
The  moment  mankind  truly  understand  one  another, 
they  will  be  at  peace.  In  order  to  this  mutual 
acquaintance,  the  social  communications  must  be 
multiplied,  and  the  social  sympathies  quickened, 
which  is  exactly  the  business  of  Society.  We 
never  do  truly  know  one  another  till  we  feel  each 
other's  feelings,  and  aspire  with  one  another's  aspi 
rations,  as  well  as  think  each  other's  thoughts.  So 
with  the  great  tribes  of  men.  Let  the  Russian  soul 
actually  appreciate  the  Turkish  soul,  and  hostilities 
must  cease.  But  before  that  can  be,  both  their 
souls  must  be  larger.  At  present  their  proportions 
are  too  meagre  to  support  a  right  manly  life  in 
themselves ;  how  can  you  expect  them  to  contain 
one  another's  ?  What  you  want,  to  end  a  quarrel, 
is  only  to  let  the  belligerents  see  each  other's  hu 
man  nature ;  and,  to  that  end,  to  get  them  a 
human  nature  large  enough  to  be  seen,  and  to 
take  in  something  broader  than  a  selfish  interest. 
In  other  words,  there  must  be,  in  these  repugnant 
races,  a  more  generous  social  culture,  and  a  better 
development  of  humanity ;  a  larger  quantit}r  of  the 
real  human  being.  So  the  world  over.  The  reason 
the  trades  and  sciences  do  not  agree  better,  is 
that  they  do  not  know  each  other's  bearings  and 


130  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

relations.  Let  them  see  that  the  perfecting  of 
each  is  the  prosperity  of  all.  Two  of  our  great 
American  productive  forces,  —  our  agriculture  and 
our  manufactures, — have  not  yet  come  into  a  good, 
amicable,  neighborly  understanding.  They  are  like 
two  suspicious  and  sharp-eyed  housekeepers  that 
happen  to  move  into  adjoining  houses.  They  sit  at 
their  windows,  watch  each  other's  movements,  criti 
cise  each  other's  housekeeping,  and  gossip  with 
their  respective  friends  over  each  other's  manage 
ment,  till  they  have  matured  a  very  satisfactory 
hatred.  But  when  they  have  been  fairly  introduced, 
at  some  sudden  emergency,  like  a  fire,  or  a  nativ 
ity,  and  have  sat  down  to  talk  matters  over,  they 
are  transformed  into  the  most  confidential  of  com 
panions.  The  moment  you  bring  the  Factory  and 
the  Farm  to  a  thorough  reciprocal  intelligence,  you 
solve  the  whole  problem  of  the  tariff,  because  you 
demonstrate  to  both  parties  that  they  are  not  two 
interests  but  one.  And  either  one  grows  by  the 
other.* 

Blunders  are  constantly  perpetrated  in  our  so 
cial  economy,  and  our  attempts  at  reform,  by  this 
partial  information,  due  to  our  one-sided  develop- 

*  See  an  eloquent  passage  in  Ruskin's  "  Political  Economy  of  Art," 
page  160,  etc.  See  also  Adam  Ferguson's  "Civil  Society,"  Part  iv., 
section  i. 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  131 

ment,  and  sluggishness  of  thought.  We  try  to 
judge  the  wants  of  the  world  from  our  little  post 
of  private  observation.  We  apply  help,  but  in  the 
wrong  spot.  We  complicate,  instead  of  relieving, 
the  difficulty.  We  offer  to  the  poor  what  we 
like,  instead  of  what  they  need,  and  so  feed  their 
wastefulness  instead  of  their  economy  and  their 
moral  courage.  The  poor  must  be  fed ;  in  the 
present  state  of  social  knowledge  and  attainment, 
it  is  as  much  the  dictate  of  self-preservation  as  of 
benevolence  to  feed  them  outright.  Rousseau  was 
right,  "  When  the  poor  have  nothing  to  eat,  they 
will  eat  the  rich."  It  is  terribly  true.  But  after 
a  Christianized  science  has  properly  arranged  the 
whole  social  structure,  aftd  effected  a  just  distribu 
tion  of  industry  and  privilege,  alms  will  more  and 
more  give  place  to  wages.  Charity  will  find  its 
exercise,  not  in  the  gross  supply  of  empty  stom 
achs,  but  in  the  higher  and  more  beautiful  offices 
that  minister  moral  sympathy  and  spiritual  strength. 
The  different  classes  will  really  help  and  strengthen 
one  another,  just  as  fast  as  they  all  contribute  to 
a  science  of  universal  growth.  Carpenter  and  gold 
smith,  lawyer  and  shipwright,  farmer  and  fisherman, 
help  every  one  his  neighbor,  only  as  they  all  join 
to  open  and  illustrate  and  publish  the  grand  laws 
of  human  effort  and  providential  equity. 


132  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

We  have  next  to  observe  the  action  of  this  law 
of  reconciliation  in  those  great  communities  of  men 
called  nations,  or  their  governments.  When  we 
have  gone  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter,,  whether 
by  the  way  of  philosophy  or  Christianity,  we  shall 
find  that  the  fundamental  idea  of  politics  is  mutual 
protection  and  friendly  intercourse.  I  do  not  say 
this  is  the  idea  of  feudal  or  aristocratic  or  impe 
rial  or  partisan  politics,  but  of  the  true,  ultimate, 
divine  politics  —  towards  which  all  these  are  tenta 
tive  experiments.  Not  to  hold  each  other  back, 
and  pull  each  other  down,  and  rob,  arid  stab,  but 
to  confederate  for  the  common  good,  and  to  com 
plete,  by  means  of  equal  labor  and  free  energies, 
an  economy  of  universal  production  whereof  all  shall 
take  the  benefit, — this  is  the  real  and  providential 
office,  whether  of  separate  empires,  or  of  the  several 
departments  under  the  same  administration.  Hence, 
you  serve  the  cause  of  good  government,  both  when 
you  perfect  any  legitimate  business  as  one  of  the 
great  nutritious  forces  which  feed  and  cover  hu 
manity,  and  also  when  you  bring  that  business  into 
amity  and  reciprocity  with  other  kinds  of  business. 
Unless  God  fails  to  furnish  a  pattern  for  his  chil 
dren  in  his  own  love,  the  right  political  state  for 
mankind  is  the  state  of  social  help. 

According    to    this    higher    view    of    international 


OF     MUTUAL    HELP.  133 

connections,  whatever  forwards  the  growth  of  one 
government  is  a  service  to  all.  England,  in  such 
a  state  of  things,  suppose  the  moral  conscience  and 
sensibility  of  both  nations  were  educated  up  to 
such  a  pitch,  would  have  no  cause  to  be  jealous 
of  American  territory,  or  French  tactics,  or  Ger 
man  learning,  or  Cossack  discipline.  It  seems  to 
me  Napoleon  uttered  a  great  fallacy,  instead  of  a 
sage  aphorism, — and  just  such  a  fallac}^  as  the  pre 
ponderance  of  the  mere  selfishly  political  over  the 
moral  perceptions  might  have  prepared  us  to  ex 
pect,  —  when  he  said,  "  America  is  a  fortunate 
country,  for  she  thrives  by  the  follies  of  our  Eu 
ropean  countries."  No  :  folly  in  one  nation  does 
not  help  another.*  It  may  set  the  balance  of  com 
mercial  exchange  in  her  favor ;  it  may  pour  into 
her  lap  a  doubtful  population  ;  it  may  cast  into 
her  hands  some  temporary  advantage,  or  leave  her 
to  a  transient  distinction.  But  it  is  the  poor 
distinction  that  comes  from  having  no  honorable 
rivals.  It  is  that  sort  of  preeminence  which  is 

*  In  1642,  the  Earl  of  Bristol  openly  maintained,  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  that  it  was  a  great  advantage  to  England  for  other  countries  to 
be  at  war  with  each  other,  since  by  that  means  England  would  get 
possession  of  their  wealth, — forgetting  that  in  the  long  run  wars  are 
the  destruction  of  wealth.  See  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  ii., 
page  1274.  Since  writing  this  passage,  I  have  met  with  an  able 
defence  of  the  same  doctrine  in  Buckle's  "  History  of  Civilization 
in  England." 


134  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

enjoyed  in  a  class  of  dunces  and  sluggards  by  a 
boy  who  is  only  a  little  less  a  dunce  and  slug 
gard  than  the  rest.  It  is  the  eminence  of  the 
stunted  shrub  on  a  sandy  plain.  Benefitted  by 
other  men's  follies  !  Benefits  have  no  such  parent 
age.  Only  wisdom  yields  them,  as  only  truth 
makes  free. 

We  must  acknowledge  that  the  practical  realiza 
tion  of  these  principles  and  these  hopes  in  political 
institutions  is  slow.  It  is  already  nearly  two  thou 
sand  years  since  Cicero,  Pagan  prophet  as  he  was, 
wrote  these  noble  words :  "  There  are  those  who  deny 
that  any  bond  of  law  or  of  association  for  purposes 
of  common  good  exists  among  citizens.  This  opin 
ion  subverts  all  union  in  a  State,  There  are  those 
who  deny  that  any  such  bond  exists  between  them 
selves  and  strangers ;  and  this  opinion  destroys  the 
community  of  the  human  race."  It  is  two  centuries 
and  a  half  since  Lord  Bacon,  poor  menial  of  a  throne 
as  his  soaring  and  far-sighted  intellect  became,  de 
clared  that  there  is  in  man's  nature  "  a  secret  love 
of  others,  which,  if  not  contracted,  would  expand 
and  embrace  all  men."  Yet  how  tardily  does  this 
sentiment, — this  great  "Law  above  all  other  laws, 
and  Hope  for  Humanity,"  as  Guizot  pronounces  it, — 
get  itself  recognized  in  the  senates  and  cabinets, 
the  overreaching  diplomacy  and  the  paltry  palaces, 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  135 

of  actual  States  !  None  the  less  is  it  every  man's 
private  obligation  in  his  own  place, — not  less  than 
that  of  statesmen  and  ministers  of  state  and  em 
perors, — to  avow  it,  and  stand  by  it,  and  be  its 
consistent  disciple.  The  day  has  broken  into  the 
sky.  The  shadow  on  the  golden  dial  grows  daily 
thinner,  as  the  sun  rises  deliberately  towards  the 
eternal  noon.  Take  the  law  of  nations  as  an  exam 
pie.  Nothing  deserving  that  name  had  existence  till 
these  modern  times.  The  barbarous  tribes  waited 
for  it  so  long.  Yet  already  the  modifications  and 
enlargements  it  has  admitted  indicate  the  progress 
of  this  spirit.  From  laws  between  nations  we  are 
evidently  going  on  to  duties  between  nations,  and 
then  to  sympathies  and  courtesies.  At  first,  the 
chief  use  was  to  secure  treaties  of  traffic,  and  a 
public  highway.  But  now  the  bonds  are  widening, 
and  begin  to  embrace  the  great  doctrine  of  Frater 
nity.  America  is  eager  to  protect  a  victim  of  op 
pression,  though  he  is  hardly  yet  her  own  subject; 
and  so  diplomacy  has  to  stretch  its  ancient  prece 
dents  to  accommodate  this  broader  feeling  of  the 
age.  It  would  be  vain  to  expect  any  hasty  com 
pletion  of  these  ameliorations.  But  it  is  wise  to 
mark  their  signals,  and  generous  to  hope  for  their 
fulfilment. 

There  have  been  systems   in  the   world   which   de- 


136  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

nied  all  this, — systems  specious  and  splendid, — some 
in  ethics,  some  in  political  economy.  But  they  have 
vanished  like  morning  mists  that  lose  and  scatter 
themselves  before  the  everlasting  hills ;  or  if  they 
have  lingered  on,  like  those  vapors  they  have  had 
to  settle  and  brood  only  in  the  low  and  less  pure 
places  where  the  mountain  winds  let  decay  alone. 
Take  the  system  of  Hobbes,  denying  the  disinter 
ested  affections.  Certainly  it  did  not  fail  for  want 
of  gifts  and  powers  in  its  defender.  With  a  mind 
so  acute  and  so  original,  blending  so  remarkably 
the  usually  separated  capacities  of  discrimination  and 
combination,  as  to  make  him  the  admiration  of  wits, 
the  delight  of  scholars,  and  a  model  to  philosophers, 
declared  by  Leibnitz  one  of  the  only  two  men  of 
modern  times  capable  of  reducing  morals  and  juris 
prudence  to  a  science,  with  a  style  which  has  been 
pronounced  "  the  very  perfection  of  didactic  lan 
guage,"  "  knowing  so  well  how  to  steer  between 
pedantry  and  vulgarity  that  two  centuries  probably 
have  not  superannuated  more  than  a  dozen  of  his 
words,"  he  has  yet  scarcely  an  avowed  disciple  to 
honor  his  name,  scarcely  a  reader  whom  shame  does 
not  drive  from  his  conclusions  as  from  some  crime 
revolting  to  humanity,  certainly  not  an  institution 
to  extend  or  embody  his  principles.  With  him  ua 
deliberate  regard  to  personal  interest  is  the  only 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  137 

possible  motive  to  human  action.  There  is  no  sense 
of  duty,  no  compunction  at  our  own  offences,  no 
indignation  against  the  crimes  of  others  unless  they 
affect  our  own  safety,  no  secret  cheerfulness  shed 
over  the  heart  by  the  practice  of  well-doing." 
Hence,  mankind,  with  all  their  impulsive  selfishness, 
must,  in  their  cool  and  rational  hours,  reject  and 
disdain  his  doctrine.  His  moral  and  political  system, 
as  another  has  well  said,  was  "a  palace  of  ice, 
transparent,  exactly  proportioned,  majestic ;  but  grad 
ually  undermined  by  the  central  warmth  of  human 
feeling,  before  it  was  thawed  into  muddy  water  by 
the  sunshine  of  true  philosophy."  God,  in  his 
Almighty  love,  made  mankind  to  love,  help,  serve, 
and  bless  one  another.  Thomas  Hobbes,  with  his 
prudential  selfishness,  could  not  succeed. 

It   follows    that    every    monopoly   which    erects    pri 
vate     advantage     against     the     general     advantage,— 
observe,    I    do    not    say   private    advantage    in   accord 
ance   with    the   general    advantage,    but    against   it, — 
has    God's    providence   for   an   antagonist.      The    great 
commercial    schemes     which    propose    to    fatten    and 
feast  on   poor  men's    poverty   are    toppled    over ;    and 
bury  their    builders,   or  their   builders'  children    under 
them. 

"  The  mills  of  God  do  slowly  wind, 
But  they  at  last  to  powder  grind." 


138  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

Servile  insurrections,  Sepoy  mutinies,  the  years 
'89  and  '48  in  Paris,  are  only  hints  of  this  tre 
mendous  truth — as  really  as  the  miraculous  night 
that  killed  the  first-born  of  Egypt,  and  emancipated 
Israel.  When  the  whole  land  of  Italy  came  to  be 
monopolized,  as  Gibbon  says  it  was  at  one  time, 
by  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty  families, — only  about 
as  many  as  make  up  the  city  of  Cincinnati, — no 
wonder  the  curse  of  a  blighted  population  began  to 
creep  over  the  country.  No  class  can  put  its  inter 
ests  forward  at  the  expense  of  the  rest.  The 
selfish  mob  is  just  as  false,  just  as  inhuman,  just 
as  much  the  enemy  of  man  and  of  true  society, 
as  the  selfish  monarch.  "  Open  national  workshops 
for  us,  and  pay  us  your  money,"  screeched  the 
Parisian  populace  in  1848,  "and  we  will  down  with 
the  barricades."  They  had  their  way.  Socialism, 
for  the  time,  triumphed  over  Society.  Suppose  the 
experiment  had  gone  on.  These  unemployed  classes 
would  have  continued  enriching  themselves.  They 
would  have  drawn  money  from  the  regular  channels 
of  trade,  interrupted  commerce,  embarrassed  capital, 
till  employment  would  have  ceased  again.  Society 
would  have  come  round  where  it  was  before,  to 
inequality,  oppression,  hunger,  with  the  plague  of 
anarchy  and  chaos  thrown  in.  The  empire  super 
vened,  and  proved,  perhaps,  quite  as  significant  an 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  139 

illustration  of  the  principle,  on  less  costly  terms. 
Self-interest  carried  out  to  unscrupulous  conclusions, 
and  riding  rough-shod  over  order,  is,  sooner  or  later, 
self-destruction ;  for  it  breaks  up  all  those  social  ties 
and  obligations  without  which  man  cannot  be  truly 
himself.  No  matter  whether  it  appears  in  the  genteel 
and  legalized  forms  of  corporate  gluttony  and  insatia 
ble  financial  aggrandizement,  or  in  the  savage  starva 
tion  riots  that  prowl  the  streets  when  these  bubbles 
burst,  mocking  and  parodying  the  most  pathetic  ap 
peals  of  human  want — villains  growling  for  "work  and 
bread,"  who  mean  never  to  do  a  day's  "work"  if  they 
can  live  by  theft,  and  to  eat  every  day  something 
much  spicier  than  "  bread."  The  virtue  of  one  class 
is  the  economy  of  all.  The  grasping  avarice  of  one  is 
the  bankruptcy  of  all.  Taxes — direct  or  indirect — for 
war,  prisons,  bad  debts,  carry  up  prices.  Everything 
that  sets  man  against  his  brother  eats  up  the  com 
mon  substance.  It  hinders  the  law  of  mutual  help. 
We  call  the  axiom  of  Machiavelli,  that  the  king 
is  to  rule  for  his  own  advantage,  a  monstrous  and 
inhuman  lie.  But  it  is  only  one  formal  justification 
of  that  grasping  temper  which  instigates  man  any 
where  to  live  for  himself  alone — a  temper  as  sternly 
reprobated  by  the  inherent  laws  of  the  social  nature 
as  by  Paul's  thirteenth  chapter  to  the  Corinthians  on 
charity. 


140  SOCIETY     A     SCHOOL 

If  we  had  the  life-time  of  Methuselah,  we  should 
all  probably  rejoice  at  last,  not  without  a  certain 
solemnity  of  thanksgiving,  to  see  the  quarrels  of 
nations  ending  in  their  predestined  reconciliations. 
The  bitterest  political  antagonisms  will  grow  friend 
ly.  Tariff  and  internal  improvements,  fishing-smack 
and  mill-wheel,  warehouse  and  market-garden,  city 
and  village,  will  form  symmetrical  features  in  a 
peaceful  landscape.  This  heavenly  estate  on  earth, 
the  last  triumph  of  social  economy  in  the  great 
family  mansion  of  our  life, — the  true  golden  age  of 
the  Future, — it  is  for  Christianity  alone  to  achieve ; 
solving  the  hardest  problems  of  our  social  state, 
and  covering  the  earth  with  righteous  institutions. 
Then  national  policy  will  be,  not  repulsion,  but  at 
traction  ;  or  rather  policy  will  cease,  and  principle 
be  installed.  The  game  called  politics, — that  crafty 
match  of  mutual  hindrance, — will  give  place  to  a 
benignant  science  of  mutual  helps, — where  govern 
ments  are  only  branches  in  an  associate  moral  or 
ganism.  The  State  will  legislate  order,  justice,  lib 
erty.  The  school  will  teach  truth.  The  church 
will  live  and  pray  like  the  Christ. 

To  further  the  final  inauguration  of  that  royal 
social  age,  every  nation  that  has  flourished  under  the 
sun  has  been  ordained  by  the  Creator  and  Father  of 
them  all.  Each  has  brought  in  its  hand,  or  its  head, 


OF     MUTUAL     HELP.  141 

or  its  heart,  some  necessary  contribution.  And  then 
the  races  shall  meet  together  and  dwell  in  peace  ; 
the  strong  heart  of  the  Saxon,  without  his  bloody 
hand  ;  the  graceful,  courtly  Norman,  without  his  lev 
ity  and  pride;  the  brave  Celt,  without  his  impudent 
ferocity ;  the  vigorous,  iron-willed  "  Senatus  Populus- 
que  Romanus,"  without  the  audacity  and  cruelty  of 
its  eagles ;  Egypt,  meditative,  but  cleared  of  its 
mysticism ;  Greece,  ingenious,  beautiful,  aspiring,  re 
deemed  from  its  idolatry  of  Beauty  to  the  worship 
of  God;  the  Hebrew,  with  his  reverent  ritual,  but 
without  his  national  hatred  and  suspicion  ;  Chaldea 
and  Shinar,  forgetting  even  their  lofty  superstitions 
and  looking  above  the  stars  to  Him  that  holdeth 
them  in  his  right  hand ;  and  all  adoring  the  invisi 
ble  Father  acceptably,  because  they  come  to  the 
altar  reconciled  to  the  brother  whom  they  have 
seen.  For,  whether  there  be  tongues,  they  shall 
cease ;  and,  whether  there  be  knowledge,  it  shall 
vanish  away.  But  faith  and  hope  and  charity 
abide ;  and  the  greatest,  still,  is  charity. 


%v!?-- 


LECTURE    Y. 

SOCIAL   THEORIES. 

WE  had  reached,  towards  the  close  of  the  last 
lecture,  a  distinction  between  Social  Science  and  So 
cialism.  Uneasy  at  the  inequalities,  the  false  distinc 
tions,  the  miseries,  which  he  sees  prevailing  in  the 
world  around  him,  or  perhaps  feels  pressing  upon 
him,  the  Socialist  refers  them  to  particular  social 
conditions  and  circumstances.  Society,  and  human 
nature  in  all  states  of  Society,  are  confounded ;  and 
the  evils  that  spring  from  the  latter  are  ascribed 
to  the  former.  By  a  logical  inversion,  it  is  pro 
posed  to  cure  the  disordered  cause  through  the 
effect,  not  the  effect  through  the  cause. 

In  order  to  strike  the  principle  which  must  guide 
our  present  discussion,  we  have  to  recall  that  great 
twofold  law  of  man's  constitution  which  sets  him  in 
equipoise  between  the  claims  and  ministries  of  as 
sociate  life,  on  the  one  side,  and  his  own  individ 
uality  on  the  other. 

Nature  has  two  purposes  with  him — first,  to  make 
the  most  of  him  as  a  unit,  by  developing  all  the 


144  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

personal  quality  and  personal  force  peculiar  to  him 
self;  and  second,  to  turn  him  to  the  best  account, 
in  the  way  of  reception  and  action,  as  an  edu 
cated  and  living  influence  among  his  fellows.  There 
is  an  error  on  two  sides,  and  a  loss  from  both,  in 
the  violation  of  this  design  of  the  Creator.  Society, 
as  a  system  of  mutual  dependencies  and  assistances, 
may  be  sacrificed  to  the  individual,  as  by  Ilobbes. 
The  individual  may  be  sacrificed  to  Society ;  this  is 
Socialism,  which  stands  in  much  the  same  relation 
to  Society,  as  conventionalism  to  good  manners,  ar 
tifice  to  art,  sciolism  to  science,  or  pietism  to  piety. 
Each  mistake  may  spring  from  a  selfish  spirit, 
or  not.  Contemplating,  as  we  have  now  to  do,  the 
socialist  theories,  and  seeing  how  often  they  have 
had  their  origin  in  a  sincere  desire  to  benefit  the 
less  favored  classes,  or  in  a  reaction  from  real  in 
justice  and  frightful  abuses  of  wealth  and  position, 
we  can  well  afford  to  treat  them  with  respect. 
Nay,  as  we  would  seek  to  displace  them,  we  can 
not  afford  to  treat  them  otherwise,  however  popular 
it  may  have  been  to  attack  them  with  ridicule  or 
contempt.  I  believe  that  a  fair  inquiry  into  their 
purport,  arguments,  and  operation,  will  result,  by 
contrast,  in  the  confirmation  of  our  principal  prop 
osition,  that  Society  in  itself  is  an  illustration  of 
the  Power,  and  Wisdom,  and  Goodness  of  God. 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  145 

Socialism  has  frequently  been  assailed,  on  the 
ground  that  its  systems  for  arranging  mankind  are 
artificial,  while  Nature  is  the  only  safe  guide.  With 
suitable  discriminations  and  definitions,  there  is  va 
lidity  in  this  objection.  But  we  must  take  care 
what  we  mean  by  Nature,  and  wrhat  others  under 
stand  us  to  mean.  For  in  our  human  nature  there 
are  terrible  forces  of  evil,  as  well  as  powers  of 
light  and  love.  Besides,  although  the  socialist  the 
ories  look  artificial  to  their  opponents,  wre  must 
remember  that  it  is  claimed  for  them  by  their  sev 
eral  advocates  that  they  are  a  simple  and  happy 
way  of  returning  to  Nature,  and  of  giving  the  provi 
dential  laws  a  freer  play.  On  the  whole,  it  appears 
to  me,  that  W'hen  our  reason,  our  political  economy, 
our  philosophy,  and  our  prejudices,  have  all  uttered 
their  protest,  and  passed  their  criticism,  the  only 
really  effectual  refutation  of  these  errors,  after  all, 
must  be  drawn  from  one  of  twro  sources  :  the  les 
sons  of  historical  experience,  and  the  gospel  of 
Ch'rist.  Of  these  two,  the  first  alone  will  not  be 
adequate  :  for  new  exigencies  are  liable  to  arise  con 
tinually,  for  which  the  precedents  of  the  past  pro 
vide  no  perfect  rule.  The  teachings  of  Christianity 
alone  are  infallible  and  final.  And  so  long  as  of 
those  a  divine  sacrifice  is  the  central  fact,  the 

cross    is    the    universal    symbol,    and    self-denial    the 

10 


146  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

characteristic  spirit  and  essential  duty,  so  long  the 
systems  that  aim  chiefly  to  make  life  easy  and  to 
free  it  from  care,  and  to  accommodate  it  to  self- 
will,  must  be  adjudged  false  and  futile.  It  is,  at 
least,  a  conflict,  in  which  one  party  or  the  other 
must  be  utterly  overthrown. 

The  grand  aim  of  all  those  schemes  known  un 
der  both  the  names  of  Socialism  and  Communism, 
has  been  to  regulate,  by  external  arrangement,  the 
three  great  interests,  Labor,  Property,  and  the  Pas 
sions,  and  especially  the  passion  of  sex.  At  the 
root  of  all  these  schemes  has  been  that  idea  of 
human  equality  of  which  Rousseau  was  the  leading 
apostle.  It  is  undoubtedly  owing  either  to  the  in 
fluence  of  that  man  on  the  modern  French  mind, 
or  else  to  a  national  characteristic  of  which  he 
was  a  remarkable  exponent,  that  France  has  been 
the  principal  theatre  of  these  socialist  experiments. 
Strictly  speaking,  the  attempt  to  secure  the  pro 
posed  equality  by  means  of  labor  is  Socialism ;  the 
attempt  to  secure  it  by  means  of  the  abolition  of 
property  is  Communism. 

Without,  at  this  moment,  referring  to  all  the 
specific  varieties  of  theory,  we  may  say  that  with 
respect  to  Labor,  the  object  has  been  to  produce  a 
greater  equality,  a  smaller  amount,  —  relatively  to 
the  production  of  value, — and  more  willingness,  or 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  147 

agreeableness,  in  the  performance.  Under  each  of 
these  proposals  we  can  detect  its  own  distinct  and 
particular  fallacy.  First :  the  Socialist,  instead  of 
producing  equality  of  labor,  is  so  to  distribute  the 
work  that  every  man  and  woman  shall  have  just 
that  work  to  do  which  each  can  do  best,  and 
which  each  will  therefore  choose.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  a  uniform  rule  that  men  choose  to  do  the 
work  that  they  are  best  fitted  for,  nor  that  they 
are  capable  of  telling  what  their  real  adaptations 
are,  nor  that  anybody  can  tell  without  that  sort 
of  experimenting  and  comparison  which  take  place 
in  the  ordinary  social  competition. 

So  of  private  Property :  the  allegation  is  that  the 
acquisition  of  it,  by  the  existing  competitory  meth 
ods,  stimulates  selfish  and  alienating  propensities ; 
that  its  inequalities  lead  to  other  moral  evils  and 
abuses ;  and  that  wealth  produces  a  dangerous  and 
oppressive  kind  of  power.  To  which  it  is  replied, 
1.  That  the  stimulus  of  personal  thrift  develops  en 
ergies,  also,  which  are  a  positive  good.  2.  That  the 
very  temptations  to  fraud  and  to  excess,  in  avarice, 
covetousness  and  luxury,  which  attend  the  present 
system  of  competition,  form  a  necessary  and  provi 
dential  school  for  virtue,  offering  a  discipline  without 
which  it  would  never  acquire  its  due  robustness  and 
independence ;  and  3.  That,  in  the  same  way,  over 


148  SOCIAL     THEOKIES. 

against  the  abuses  of  riches  are  set  those  possible 
advantages  of  personal  beneficence,  public  spirit,  and 
wise  expenditure,  which  furnish  a  nobler  exercise  to 
humanity  than  a  monotonous,  inevitable,  involuntary 
comfort : — besides  which  is  urged  the  impossibility  of 
equalizing  the  conditions  of  men,  whose  natural  ca 
pacities  are  made  unequal  by  their  Creator,  however 
often  you  throw  into  common  stock  and  re-distribute 
their  goods. 

Of  the  Passions,  whereas  it  is  affirmed  by  Social 
ism  that  their  evils  spring  from  the  resistances  they 
meet,  philosophy  answers,  No ;  but  from  their  own 
excesses.  Whereas  Socialism  says  they  are  to  be 
managed  through  outward  circumstances,  experience 
says,  No;  but  by  an  inward  principle  in  every  soul, 
which  is  equal  to  their  mastery;  and  whereas  Social 
ism  teaches  that  the  conflicts  of  the  desires  are  to 
cease  by  their  indulgence,  Christianity  teaches  that 
they  can  be  controlled  only  by  their  subjection  to 
conscience,  and  their  submission  to  the  law  of  GocL 
"  Without  piety,"  says  the  terse  and  thoughtful  au 
thor  of  "Friends  in  Council,"  "there  will  be  no 
good  government." 

Observe  here,  that  something  of  the  socialist 
spirit  and  sophistry  attach  to  those  measures  of 
special  combination  which,  without  collecting  com 
munities  of  people,  and  often  with  the  kindest  in- 


SOCIAL      THEORIES.  149 

tention,  Jo  virtually  interfere  with  what  may  be 
called,  without  begging  the  question,  the  regular 
action  of  the  social  Family,  and  break  in  upon  the 
mutual  understanding,  and  the  implied  good  faith  ot 
different  branches  of  industry  in  the  hands  of  in 
dividuals. 

Leagues  among  working  classes,  for  cheapening 
provisions,  disturb  the  common  balance  and  broad 
partnership  of  the  employments,  by  a  class  privi 
lege,  and  are  just  as  contrary  to  a  true  social 
spirit  as  the  class  privileges  of  aristocratic  wealth. 
The  English  Trades'  Unions,  which  proposed  to  do 
away  with  the  master  mechanics,  failed.  So  did 
Mr.  Babbage's  proposed  scheme  of  association,  for 
reducing  the  cost  of  the  necessaries  of  life  among 
factory  operatives.  Sumptuary  legislation,  or  legis 
lation  that  undertakes  to  coerce  private  morality, 
or  to  force  the  free  relations  of  capital  and  labor, 
comes  to  the  same  unfortunate  end.  By  an  act 
of  Parliament  of  1773,  a  rule  of  minimum  wages, 
2.  <?.,  a  rule  providing  that  wages  should  never  go 
below  a  certain  point,  was  applied  to  the  Spital- 
fields  weavers.  It  was  intended  to  protect  the  in 
terests  of  the  operatives ;  but  in  twenty  years  four 
thousand  looms  were  standing  idle,  and  the  hands 
were  out  of  work  arid  wages  both.  Strikes  among 
workmen  illustrate  the  same  suicidal  policy  of  at- 


150  SOCIAL      THEORIES. 

tempting  to  compel  one  class  to  conform  to  the 
will  of  another,  and  to  take  the  course  of  demand 
and  supply  in  employment  out  of  its  natural  chan 
nels.  Labor  depends  on  capital.  Strikes  diminish 
the  capital  by  suspending  the  work.  Of  course 
they  diminish,  the  further  they  go,  the  means  of 
raising  wages,  and  defeat  their  own  object.  It  is 
the  industry  of  the  working  classes  that  increases 
the  prosperity  of  the  employer,  and  thus  the  work 
man's  own  wages.  Each  helps  the  other.  In  sea 
sons  of  pressure,  when  the  markets  are  dull,  and 
goods  too  plenty,  the  manufacturing  company  are 
obliged  to  contract  their  operations.  If  the  opera 
tives  will  take  up,  temporarily,  with  reduced  pay, 
both  survive,  though  both  suffer.  But  if  the  opera 
tives  refuse,  then  the  mills  stop,  arid  all  alike  may 
be  crushed. 

The  recognition  of  those  laws  of  reciprocal  har 
mony  and  interdependence,  which  bind  the  several 
trades  and  professions  together,  is  a  matter  of  pro 
found  importance,  not  only  to  our  philosophy  of 
Reform,  but  to  our  personal  conduct,  especially  in 
periods  of  financial  distress,  and  our  general  prac 
tical  applications  of  the  principles  of  political  econ 
omy.  It  explodes  if  it  does  not  silence  much  of 
the  fallacious  and  illogical  exhortation  which  springs 
to  the  lips  of  superficial  moralists,  in  "Hard  Times," 


SOCIAL      THEORIES.  151 

about  retrenchment  in  expenditure.  Precisely  be 
cause  the  different  employments  of  Society  do  thus 
depend  on  each  other,  the  duty  of  wise  men,  when 
any  of  them  are  embarrassed,  is  to  keep  the  rate 
of  expenditure  as  nearly  as  possible  at  its  usual 
average  amount.  The  disorder  is  a  depressed  state 
of  credit  and  currency.  If  now  your  classes  that 
are  really  able  and  competent  to  buy,  suddenly 
change  their  whole  habit,  hearken  to  this  indis 
criminate  cry  for  retrenchment,  and  cut  off  all  the 
comforts  and  luxuries  they  can  possibly  spare, 
what  is  the  necessary  effect?  They  stop  the  cur 
rents  of  small  trade,  —  those  rills  that  feed  ten 
thousand  homes,  disappoint  the  traders,  throw  an 
unsaleable  stock  upon  their  hands,  bring  down  ca 
lamity  from  the  great  establishments  and  manufac 
turing  corporations  into  the  retail  department,  and 
turn  these  industrious  tradesmen,  mechanics,  florists, 
dress-makers,  servants,  into  paupers.  Could  a  pol 
icy  be  devised  more  exactly  calculated  to  aggra 
vate  the  disease  and  increase  the  confusion?  Some 
branches  of  business  deal  wholly  in  those  fanciful 
and  ornamental  articles  which,  in  moments  of  alarm, 
or  real  loss,  people  first  pronounce  superfluous. 
Doubtless,  individual  judgment  must  be  applied  to 
particular  cases.  Men  who  have  not  money  to 
spend  cannot  spend  it.  There  is  a  line  between 


152  SOCIAL      THEORIES. 

liberality  and  extravagance.  But  nothing  ought  to 
be  plainer  than  that  abrupt  alterations  in  modes  of 
living  are  a  wrong  inflicted  by  one  class  on  an 
other,  violating  the  gracious  principle  of  their  mu 
tual  dependence.  To  all  persons  whose  means  are 
not  actually  stripped  away,  that  law  says,  "  Post 
pone  your  reductions  for  the  present ;  economize  by 
and  bye ;  use  discretion  always ;  go  not  beyond 
your  means ;  incur  no  rash  debts ;  but,  otherwise, 
as  to  the  comforts  and  even  the  luxuries  in  which 
you  have  been  accustomed  to  indulge,  preserve  as 
nearly  as  possible  the  ordinary  rule  of  outlay,  and 
so  satisfy  the  commercial  expectations  which  your 
past  habits  have  reasonably  awakened.  Shocks  and 
convulsions  are  the  malady ;  cure  them,  so  far  as 
lies  in  your  power,  by  a  regular  and  uniform  dis 
bursement." 

I  pass  on  now  to  some  description  and  some 
criticism  of  different  theories  of  Socialism.  We 
have  to  distinguish,  at  the  outset,  between  the 
more  elaborate  and  ambitious  forms  of  socialist 
speculation,  and  certain  local  communities,  gathered 
on  an  exceptional  basis,  for  particular  objects. 
Such  as  these  latter  are  the  various  religious 
communities  that  have  been  organized,  in  different 
periods,  by  the  spirit  of  asceticism,  or  charity, 
or  a  separating  enthusiasm,  or  a  purity  repelled 


SOCIAL      THEORIES.  153 

from  surrounding  falsehood  and  corruption.  It  can 
scarcely  be  pretended  that  the  monks,  the  Mo 
ravians,  the  Jesuits  of  Paraguay,  the  Shakers, 
even  when  their  societies  were  most  flourishing, 
contemplated  a  complete  social  plan.  They  did  not 
profess  to  meet  all  social  wants.  Religious  faith 
and  zeal  commonly  protected  them  from  many  of 
the  worst  mischiefs,  though  we  cannot  help  regard 
ing  even  them  as  deviations  from  a  true  social 
economy.  The  sexes  were  separated.  Everything 
bore  the  character  of  an  exceptional  and  temporary 
provision.  This  was  emphatically  true  of  the  very 
incidental  and  limited  communistic  element  in  the 
Apostolic  church.  And  though  the  Christian  monas- 
ticism  of  the  following  centuries  was  far  more  sys 
tematic  and  presumptuous,  yet,  in  its  wildest  fanati 
cism,  it  never  pretended  to  be  a  universal  social 
scheme. 

Some  of  the  elements  of  Communism  were  intro 
duced  into  the  ancient  State  of  Lacedsemon.  Plu 
tarch,  in  his  Life  of  Lycurgus,  gives  an  account  of 
the  attempts  of  that  legislator  to  throw  the  landed 
property  of  the  nation  into  common  stock,  and 
then  to  equalize  it.  The  project  originated,  appar 
ently,  in  a  benevolent  purpose ;  but  it  resulted  in 
a  miserable  despotism.  The  Spartan  had  no  house 
hold,  no  home.  If  allowed  to  marry  at  all,  his 


154  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

married  life  was  still  subject  to  public  supervision. 
The  State  watched  and  controlled  him;  and  what 
the  State  wanted  was  to  breed  warriors.  If  the 
sight  of  their  children  made  fathers  too  tender 
hearted  for  that,  they  must  either  not  beget  chil 
dren,  or  not  live  with  them,  or  even  refuse  to  see 
them.  Among  the  free  citizens  there  must  be  no 
commerce,  no  dealings  in  money.  All  traffic  and 
artizanship  were  handed  over  to  the  helots.  It 
was  a  tremendous  piece  of  coercion ;  a  strange  mix 
ture  of  Socialism  and  tyranny, — a  model  not  likely 
to  find  copies. 

Socialist  reformers  sometimes  refer  to  the  author 
ity  of  Plato.  Plato's  political  system  was  invented 
as  a  kind  of  practical  illustration  of  his  whole 
ethical  and  metaphysical  philosophy.  The  Dialogue 
on  the  Republic,  where  this  system  is  unfolded,  is 
a  summary,  or  rather  a  logical  terminus,  of  all  his 
ideas  of  being,  morality,  general  science,  and  civil 
organization.  It  opens  with  an  abstract  discussion 
of  the  nature  of  Justice,  and  passes  out  into  an 
ideal  representation  of  the  embodiment  of  Eight  in 
a  city  or  a  State.  The  State  is  considered  as  an 
exhibition  (napadeLy^a)  of  the  individual.  Yet  "  the 
State  takes  its  rise  because  none  of  us  individually 
happens  to  be  self-sufficient."  Plato  divides  the  citi 
zens  of  his  ideal  republic  into  three  classes,  the 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  155 

deliberative,  the  auxiliary,  and  the  money-making. 
The  administration  of  the  government,  for  peace 
and  war,  should  be  committed  to  the  highest,  that 
is,  the  wisest,  purest,  best  bred  order  of  men  and 
women, — whom  he  calls  the  philosophers.  These 
guardians  should  have  their  training  at  the  public 
cost  and  should  be  without  property,  so  as  to  be 
exempt  from  all  the  calculations,  anxieties  and 
sordid  overreachings  which  corrupt  and  distract  a 
ruler's  mind.  To  release  them  more  effectually 
from  domestic  care  and  ambition,  the  family  should 
be  abolished,  and  a  community  of  wives  and  chil 
dren  take  its  place.  The  two  grand  departments 
of  education  should  be  music  and  gymnastics, — 
which  may  perhaps  better  be  rendered,  the  har 
monious  development  and  the  vigorous  discipline  of 
the  powers.  Poetry  should  be,  for  the  most  part, 
excluded,  partly  because  it  tends  to  the  enervation 
and  relaxing  of  the  stronger  forces  of  the  soul, 
and  partly  for  the  subtle  reason  that,  as  all  things 
may  be  said,  in  the  Platonic  scheme,  to  exist 
originally  in  the  idea,  or  invisible  form,  and  sec 
ondly,  to  be  produced  in  a  sensible  shape,  the 
poet,  who  only  pictures  this  sensible  shape,  really 
gives  us  the  thing  at  the  third  remove  from  the 
original  fact.  Thus  a  common  table  exists  first  in 
its  archetypal  idea;  secondly,  in  the  wooden  shape 


156  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

of  legs  and  leaves  formed  by  the  cabinet-maker; 
and  thirdly,  in  the  illusive  representation  or  de 
scription  of  a  poet  or  an  artist.  The  work  of 
this  latter,  being  imitative  in  the  second  de 
gree,  is  superfluous  and  useless.  In  every  respect, 
Plato  aims  at  real  advantages,  the  most  complete 
subjugation  of  the  passions,  and  an  elevated  hea 
then  morality. 

Of  the  different  kinds  of  government  he  desig 
nates  five.  The  first  is  that  which  he  recommends 
as  accordant  with  Right,  the  true  welfare  of  a 
commonwealth.  This  is  an  aristocracy ;  only  the 
word  is  taken  not  in  its  present  popular  sense, 
but  literally,  as  denoting  a  government  of  those 
persons  from  the  people  who  are  everyway  best, — 
most  competent,  brave,  patriotic,  learned,  and  disin 
terested.  Contrasted  with  this  are  four  faulty  kinds 
of  rule :  a  timocracy,  or  government  of  ambition ; 
an  oligarchy ;  a  democracy ;  and  a  despotism. 

In  its  lofty  requirement  of  self-denial,  this  Pla 
tonic  Socialism  differs  totally  from  the  modern  the 
ories.  Nor  is  the  view  carried  out  into  all  their 
minuteness  of  detail.  With  its  many  defects  and 
mistakes,  it  is  incapable  of  mischief,  hanging  there 
in  the  cool,  rare  atmosphere  of  intellectual  specu 
lation, — a  city  in  the  air.  Plato's  own  language  at 
the  outset  is,  "as  if  we  were  talking  in  the  way 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  157 

of  fable."*  Yet  the  Dialogue  is  one  of  the  mas 
terpieces  of  the  most  imperial  mind  of  antiquity, 
and  is  a  sublime  illustration  of  the  great  Platonic 
idea,  that  Good  is  a  social  principle.  In  this  it 
exhibits  that  singular  combination  of  dialectic  force 
with  humane  designs  which  has  always  struck 
Plato's  interpreters  as  wonderful,  and  which  led 
one  of  them  to  say,  "  Plato's  great  object  was 
man.  He  lived  with  man,  felt  as  a  man,  held  in 
tercourse  with  kings,  interested  himself  deeply  in 
the  political  revolutions  of  Sicily,  was  the  pupil  of 
one  whose  boast  it  was  to  have  brought  down 
philosophy  from  heaven  to  earth  that  it  might  raise 
man  up  from  earth  to  heaven ;  and,  above  all,  he 
was  a  witness  and  an  actor  in  the  midst  of  that 
ferment  of  humanity  exhibited  in  the  democracy 
of  Athens." 

Of  the  Utopias,  the  two  most  remarkable,  per 
haps,  are  those  of  Sir  Thomas  More  and  James 
Harrington.  More  wrote  the  work  which  gives  a 
name  to  the  whole  class,  while  he  was  receiving 
the  most  dazzling  attentions  from  his  sovereign, 
and  was  really  the  most  signal  person  of  his  age 
in  England.  It  was  about  the  year  1518  that  it- 
was  published,  in  Latin,  at  Basle.  From  his  early 
youth,  this  great  political  genius  and  incorruptible 

*  Book  ii.,  chapter  17. 


158  SOCIAL       THEORIES. 

patriot  had  been  a  student  of  civil  institutions, 
public  law,  and  forensic  eloquence.  Neither  the 
court  nor  the  times  favored  a  virtue  so  rare.  The 
great  thinker  used  to  steal  away  from  the  festivi 
ties  and  garden  walks  where  the  king  fondled  and 
flattered  him,  to  write  out  his  dream  of  a  happy 
commonwealth.  Imagining  an  island,  of  lovely  scen 
ery  and  delightful  climate,  in  the  western  seas,  he 
peoples  it  with  the  virtuous,  prosperous  groups. 
The  name,  Utopia,  is  taken  from  that  of  a  sup 
posed  hero,  or  leader,  Utopus.  The  work  is  an 
extended  description  of  the  laws,  customs,  religion, 
occupations,  of  this  imaginary  settlement,  including 
some  communistic  features.  The  mixture  of  what 
is  grotesque  and  frivolous  with  what  is  noble  and 
true,  has  puzzled  many  of  the  commentators.  The 
probable  key  to  the  plan  is  furnished  by  the 
theory  that  More  wished  to  publish  views  of  gov 
ernment  and  society  very  dear  to  himself,  but 
more  liberal  and  enlightened  than  Henry  VIII.  or 
his  age  would  tolerate,  if  they  were  put  forth  in 
a  serious  form  and  by  a  direct  argument.  Resort 
ing  to  a  device  of  fancy,  therefore,  and  intermin 
gling  much  which  should  carry  its  own  explanation 
as  merely  a  fantastic  or  chimerical  entertainment, 
the  sagacious  statesman  yet  contrived  to  introduce 
and  to  commend  some  of  his  noblest  doctrines  of 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  159 

freedom,  conscience,  and  a  lofty  standard  of  political 
ethics.  This  comports  with  the  spirit  of  the  earnest 
martyr  to  the  simple  conviction  of  Right,  who 
not  long  after  gave  his  head  to  the  axe  rather 
than  connive  at  the  domestic  crimes  of  his  king. 
But  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  More  was 
drawing  out  a  definite  pattern  of  any  social  sys 
tem  to  be  realized  among  men. 

James  Harrington  was  a  contemporary  of  the 
first  settlers  of  New  England.  Though  an  Oxford 
scholar, '  and  an  officer  in  the  royal  household  of 
Charles  I.,  he  was  a  stanch  republican,  and  was 
at  last  driven  to  side  with  the  Roundheads.  His 
"  Oceana,"  published  in  1656,  was  a  political  ro 
mance, — its  fictitious  form  being  adopted  as  a  con 
venient  vehicle  for  the  author's  passionate  attach 
ment  to  the  principles  of  freedom.  As  the  plan  of 
a  State,  it  has  exerted  no  force ;  and  with  all  its 
literary  merit,  it  has  probably  been  much  less  read 
than  the  "Utopia"  of  More. 

The  great  name  in  modern  Socialism  is  Charles 
Fourier.  Fourier  is  entitled  to  this  preeminence  on 
several  accounts  :  by  the  boldness  and  thoroughness 
of  his  theory ;  by  the  minute,  systematic,  and,  we 
may  even  say,  the  formally  scientific  arrangement 
and  distribution  of  all  the  parts  of  his  plan ;  by 
the  intellectual  brilliancy  and  eloquent  audacity  with 


160  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

which  he  thrust  his  stupendous  absurdity  upon  the 
incredulity,  and  yet  conquered  for  it  the  admira 
tion,  of  the  thinking  world ;  and  by  the  strange, 
the  almost  whimsical  contrast  between  the  splendor 
of  the  imaginary  scenes  he  pictured  for  the  future 
of  our  race  and  the  narrow  and  dingy  accompani 
ments  of  his  own  personal  condition. 

This  French  visionary,  who  might  have  been  a 
philosopher  if  philosophy  were  never  subjected  to 
the  test  of  practice,  or  who  might  have  been  a 
poet  if  he  had  not  indulged  in  imaginations  meant 
to  be  put  into  practical  operation,  was  the  son  of 
a  cloth  dealer,  and  was  born  eighty-six  years  ago, 
at  Besangon,  in  France.  His  entire  life  he  spent 
in  subordinate  situations  in  mercantile  establish 
ments,  at  Marseilles,  Lyons  and  Paris,  and  most 
of  it  in  obscurity  and  poverty.  Amidst  this  rou 
tine  of  drudgery  and  this  contracted  scenery,  there 
passed  before  him  the  gorgeous  spectacle  of  a  ren 
ovated  earth,  a  reconstructed  Humanity,  a  social 
state  glorious  as  any  ideal  conception  of  Paradise 
itself.  Nor  was  it  in  his  conception,  apparently, 
altogether  a  cloudy,  confused  vision,  all  a  dream 
to  him,  and  all  rhetoric  to  his  reader.  Rigorous 
and  exact  rules  of  the  mathematics  were  applied 
to  it.  It  was  a  careful  and  complicated  compound 
of  morals,  fancies,  principles  and  numbers.  The 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  161 

arithmetic  proportion  of  his  phalansteries  was  based 
on  the  calculations  of  Newton.  And  there  is 
scarcely  a  department  of  human  knowledge  with 
which  the  learning  of  his  voluminous  works  does 
not,  in  some  way,  intermeddle. 

For  the  publication  of  his  compositions,  which  he 
commenced  in  1808,  he  depended  on  the  assistance 
of  some  wealthy  friends.*  The  first  few  disciples 
that  could  be  prevailed  on  to  read  these  extrava 
gant  writings,  and  were  credulous  enough  to  yield 
to  them,  w^ere  not  found  till  he  was  more  than 
fifty  years  old,  about  1825.  The  French  revolu 
tion  of  five  years  later  unsettled  the  old  order, 
and  opened  the  ear  of  public  fanaticism  and  dis 
content  to  any  imposing  vagary  that  promised  ease, 
comfort,  enjoyment,  with  little  labor,  less  self-restraint 
and  no  sacrifice.  It  proved,  however,  that,  both 
then  and  in  the  still  more  favorable  disorganiza 
tions  of  1848,  insuperable  obstacles  existed  to  the 
popularizing  of  his  works.  Such  as  were  published 
found  able  expositors,  defenders,  and  translators,  in 
his  own  country,  in  England,  and  even  in  America. 
These  digests  and  interpretations,  however,  no  matter 

*  The  most  important  of  these  to  the  student  of  his  system  nre  enti 
tled  "  Traite  d1  Association  Domestique  Agricole"  "  Theorie  des  Quatres 
Mouvements  et  des  Destinces  Generates"  and  u  Le  Nouveau  Monde  In- 
dustriel  et  Societaire" 

11 


162  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

how  warm  the  spirit  of  championship  in  which 
they  were  conceived,  gave  him  little  comfort.  He 
always  maintained,  even  to  the  close  of  his  disap 
pointed  life,  and  with  pretty  good  reason,  that  no 
body  understood  his  ideas,  and  that  no  representa 
tion  whatever,  but  his  own,  could  be  fairly  made 
of  his  doctrines ;  and  to  this  day,  his  most  im 
partial  and  competent  readers  are  left  in  doubt 
whether  it  can  be  said  that  even  his  own  repre 
sentation  is  more  successful  than  the  rest.  Some 
slight  but  fatal  defect,  enough  to  mar  the  unity  of 
the  whole,  clung  to  the  ardent  attempts  of  his  best 
instructed  advocates.  Indeed,  the  greater  part  of 
his  immense  mass  of  manuscript  remains  unpub 
lished  still,  in  the  Phalansterian  Academy  at  Paris. 
Such  a  state  of  being  as  an  indolent  and  pleasure- 
loving  community  would  delight  in  was  certainly 
promised  by  this  prophet  after  their  own  heart. 
Nothing  could  have  prevented  their  hailing  and 
crowning  him  as  the  universal  Deliverer,  except 
the  serious  inconvenience  of  being  unable  to  be 
lieve  what  he  said.  His  golden  age  was  to  be 
the  fulfilment  of  every  sensual  desire, — the  com 
plete,  unhindered,  if  not  inexhaustible  gratification 
of  every  passion  of  human  nature ;  and  these  grat 
ifications  were  to  be  constantly,  in  every  instance, 
.as  intense  and  ecstatic  as  the  keenest  relish  of 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  163 

our  rarest  bliss  hitherto. *  It  must  be  added,  that 
the  joys  of  the  intellect  and  the  heart  were  to 
be  in  proportion,  and  also  that  he  held  the  pas 
sions  to  be  sacred,  as  the  gift  of  God.  So  per 
fectly,  in  the  new  order,  would  mind  and  body  and 
affections  be  trained,  balanced  and  preserved,  —  so 
marvellously  would  nature  yield  up  her  stores  of 
nutriment  and  energy,  that  humanity  would  be  re 
juvenated, — all  sweat  and  care  and  toil  arid  disap 
pointment  would  cease,  and  the  most  necessary 
offices,  such  as  are  now  irksome  and  homely, 
would  be  as  fresh  and  inviting  as  the  most  ex 
hilarating  sports.  If  this  grand  carnival  of  unsa- 
tiated  appetites  required  so  great  an  innovation  on 
the  part  of  Nature  as  the  production  of  a  new 
species  of  animals,  Fourier  would  not  stick  at  that. 
Who  was  he,  to  stint  her  prodigality,  or  distrust 
the  accommodating  possibilities  of  her  bounty  ? 
What  was  a  new  natural  element  or  two,  in  view 
of  a  result  so  magnificent  ?  To  accomplish  a  more 
rapid  transit  to  and  fro,  and  convey  the  pleasant 

*  "  M.  Fourier  boasts  to  have  made  the  grand  discovery  that  our  varied 
passions,  if  left  to  themselves,  would  so  counteract,  so  supplement  each 
other,  that  the  most  complete  harmony  would  result.  If  so,  how  hap 
pens  it  that  Society  did  not  at  once  arrange  itself  into  this  perfect  har 
mony  by  the  spontaneous  passions  of  men  ?  Spontaneity  comes  before 
reflection.  How  is  it  that  human  society  was  not  at  once  complete, 
like  the  society  of  bees  and  of  ants ?" — THORNDALE. 


164  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

provisions  of  one  climate  to  another,  unprecedented 
tame  creatures,  of  the  lion  and  the  whale  kind,  swift 
and  capacious,  were  to  make  their  appearance,  as 
transcendental  beasts  of  burden.  The  planets  them 
selves  were  to  procreate  their  own  species,  and  to 
furnish  each  other  their  respective  types  of  exist 
ence,  in  amicable  interchange.  The  mineral,  vegeta 
ble  and  animal  kingdoms  of  our  globe  receive  con 
tributions  from  all  the  moons  and  orbs  of  the  solar 
system ;  the  elephant,  the  oak,  and  the  diamond 
being  created  by  the  sun  himself, — the  horse,  the 
lily  and  the  ruby  by  Saturn, — the  cow,  the  jonquil 
and  the  topaz  by  Jupiter, — the  dog,  the  violet  and 
opal  stones  by  the  Earth. 

Starting  with  the  complaint  that  Society  in  its 
present  competitive  condition  is  a  "universal  state  of 
war,"  Fourier  claimed  to  have  discovered  the  secret 
of  its  restoration  to  harmony.  The  key  to  the  uni 
verse  is  the  "law  of  attraction."  In  the  grand  whole 
of  nature  there  are  four  "  movements,"  in  an  ascend 
ing  scale,  viz.,  the  material,  the  organic,  the  ani 
mal,  the  social.  To  these  he  afterward  added  a 
fifth,  the  aromal,  which  is  to  be  the  consummation 
of  all  perfect  order  and  joy,  corresponding  to  the 
Christian  millennium.  Even  previous  to  this  aromal 
stage,  marvellous  ameliorations  and  novelties  are  to 
appear.  So  ecstatic  and  transcendant,  in  fact,  will 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  165 

be  the  felicities  of  that  period,  produced  by  the 
new  social  organization,  that  great  precaution  is 
necessary  in  announcing  them  to  mankind,  lest  a 
too  sudden  disclosure  should  bewitch  the  world 
into  a  general  delirium.  The  Prophet  reveals  only 
a  few  features  of  that  ineffable  glory.  The  word 
toil  will  lose  its  meaning.  Work  will  be  play, 
and  play  will  be  more  productive  of  solid  use 
than  work  was  ever  known  to  be.  Slavery  will 
cease.  Woman  will  be  elevated  out  of  all  her  dis 
abilities.  The  duration  of  man's  life  will  be  a 
hundred  and  forty  years.  His  period  of  love  will 
be  a  hundred  and  twenty  years.  Changes  in  the 
material  world  will  correspond  to  those  in  the  moral. 
The  Arctic  climate  will  soften.  The  ocean  will  be 
sweet.  Four  moons  will  accompany  the  earth, 
which  is  the  third  planet.  Death  will  introduce 
man  to  the  aromal  life.  And  when  the  course  of 
the  world  itself  is  finished,  the  earth-life  will  be 
handed  over  to  the  planet  Mercury. 

The  chief  agent  of  this  social  regeneration  was 
to  be  the  phalange,  or  phalanstery ;  or  rather,  the 
perpetual  society  of  man  must  exist  in  that  form, 
—a  series  of  groups.  Each  of  these  was  to  con 
sist  of  four  hundred  families,  averaging  four  and  a 
half  persons  each,  making  eighteen  hundred  in  all. 
The  word  family  is  not  used  here  in  the  ordinary 


166  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

sense  ;  the  family  founded  in  marriage,  consisting  of 
parents  and  children,  is  an  evil  to  be  got  rid  of. 
The  financial  value  was  to  be  held  in  eleven  hun 
dred  and  twenty-eight  shares,  determined  by  a 
very  nice  mathematical  computation ;  and  of  these 
shares  five  twelfths  were  to  accrue  to  labor,  four 
twelfths  to  capital,  and  three  twelfths  to  skill. 
Ultimately  the  whole  world  was  to  be  covered  with 
phalanges.  All  necessities  were  to  be  provided  by 
them,  but  commercial  interchange  was  not  recog 
nized.  The  head  of  all  the  phalanges  was  to  be 
an  omniarch,  located  at  Constantinople.  Each  group 
was  to  be  composed  according  to  passional  attrac 
tions  and  affinities.  As  there  is  harmony  between 
every  passion  and  its  object,  so  there  is  harmony 
between  the  passions  and  all  necessary  labor.  Some 
kind  of  work  is  pleasant  to  all.  Some  children  love 
dirt;  this  shows  that  there  are  some  people  made 
for  dirty  employment.  All  the  passions  of  which 
human  nature  is  capable  will  be  represented  by 
sixteen  hundred  and  twenty  persons,  rightly  chosen. 
Consult  the  proper  adaptations,  and  all  the  pro 
ductive  industries  would  be  carried  forward,  while 
mankind  should  not  suspect  they  were  doing  any 
thing  but  amuse  themselves.  Everybody  should  be 
able  to  do  only  what  he  pleases,  meet  only  peo 
ple  that  are  agreeable,  eat  only  what  he  likes,  obey 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  167 

nothing  but  his  propensities.  No  discord ;  no  of 
fence  ;  no  crosses ;  no  fatigue ;  no  unsatisfied  want ; 
no  indigestion ;  no  plague,  or  pain,  or  fear,  or 
tediousness,  from  social  collisions,  or  lack  of  sym 
pathy.  Of  course  morality  is  quite  dissolved,  or 
superseded.  Constancy  is  forgotten.  The  offset  to 
this  is,  that,  in  this  higher  condition,  the  passions 
are  purified ;  they  do  not  chafe  nor  surfeit ;  the 
appetites  lose  their  grossness  ;  and  there  is  no 
sin. 

Fourier  held  that  his  system  of  the  social  econ 
omy  would  come,  historically,  next  after  Christi 
anity,  advancing  beyond  that,  and  would  be  the  third 
grand  dispensation.  Hitherto,  he  taught,  man  is  in 
a  state  only  of  civilization — civilizee.  Now,  civiliza 
tion  is  only  the  fifth  of  thirty-two  possible  states 
of  Society ;  the  rest  are  to  come.  Civilization  is 
for  the  rich,  who  are  only  a  twentieth  part  of  the 
race.  Its  principle  is  the  "war  of  all  against  all." 
Competition  is  anarchy.  Property  is  an  evil.  In 
rejecting  civilization  the  instincts  of  savages  and 
barbarians  are  right.  The  only  relief  to  its  greedi 
ness  is  self-denial,  which,  after  all,  is  another  prin 
cipal  misery.  From  civilization  the  transition  into 
the  harmonial  society  will  not  be  less  remarkable 
than  the  metamorphosis  of  the  worm  into  the  but 
terfly.  "  The  passions  and  their  gratifications  will 


168  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

be  so  multiplied  by  each  other  as  to  produce 
square  or  cubical  quantities  of  felicity,  rational  and 
several, — without  frailty  or  reaction."  In  following 
out  this  conception,  Fourier  was  led  into  exposures 
of  unhealthy  and  unreasonable  modes  of  living,  the 
neglect  and  filth  and  inconvenience  of  great  cities 
especially,  and  other  errors  in  the  economic  and 
industrial  habits  of  different  nations,  which  have  a 
real  sanitary  value,  and  are  adapted  to  prepare  the 
way  for  reforms  more  practicable  than  he  proposed. 
Indeed,  the  term  practicability  can  scarcely  be 
used  in  connection  with  his  splendid  ideal  fabric, 
except  in  irony.  It  has  been  justly  said  that  the 
one  formidable  enemy  he  had  to  meet  was  the  put 
ting  of  his  own  theory  to  experiment :  though  it 
was  curious  that  he,  by  a  secret  prognostication 
wiser  than  his  brain,  expected  it  would  fail.  A 
phalanx  was  started  at  Rambouillet,  not  far  from 
Paris.  The  cost  of  the  fruitless  trial  was  estimated 
at  £20,000.  The  fate  of  the  little  undertakings 
suggested  by  him  in  our  own  neighborhood  is  too 
well  known  to  need  remark.  Notwithstanding,  Fou 
rier  seems  to  have  been  a  bigot  for  his  own 
notions,  to  the  last.  Six  years  before  his  death, 
which  happened  in  1837,  he  wrote  a  severe  and 
bitter  treatise  against  the  follies  and  impostures  of 
two  speculators  everyway  as  sound  as  himself,  and 


SOCIAL      THEORIES.  169 

called   it,    The    Tricks   and   Charlatanry   of    two   Sects, 
St.    Simon    and   Oiven* 

Claude  Henry,  St.  Simon,  was  twelve  years  older 
than  Fourier,  and  died  just  twelve  years  before 
him.  He  was  of  a  very  different  social  position 
from  his  fellow-countryman,  was  born  of  an  aristo 
cratic  family,  descended  from  noble  blood,  indeed 
claiming  descent  from  Charlemagne.  The  best  ac 
count  of  him  is  that  he  was  properly  a  victim 
of  scientific  ambition.  Whether  as  the  cause  or 
the  effect  of  that  ambition,  he  appears  to  have 
fostered  a  foolish  rumor  that  his  royal  ancestor  ap 
peared  to  him  in  a  dream  arid  told  him  that  their 
house,  having  produced  a  great  monarch,  was  des 
tined  to  produce  a  great  philosopher.  Acting  on 
this  nocturnal  hint,  the  young  scion  of  the  old 
noblesse  united  his  resources  as  a  gentleman  and  a 
student  to  earn  the  reputation  he  coveted.  He 
took  a  residence  near  the  Polytechnic  School  and 
threw  open  his  private  hospitalities  to  a  series  of 
brilliant  meetings  of  the  savans  and  forcible  men 
of  his  time, — reserving  to  himself  the  high  office 
of  generalizer  and  judge  upon  the  results  of  their 
investigations.  When  Napoleon  proposed  to  the  In 
stitute  to  make  a  formal  estimate  of  the  achieve 
ments  of  science,  St.  Simon  undertook  to  conduct 

*  "  Pieges  et  Charlatanisme  des  deux  Scctes, — St.  Simon  ct  Owen." 


170  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

the  answer.  His  travels  and  extensive  researches 
were  all  made  to  bear  on  his  philosophical  fame. 
Even  when  he  was  a  youthful  soldier  in  the  cavalry 
service,  taking  a  hint  from  Philip,  with  a  varia 
tion,  he  kept  up  the  flattery  of  a  great  destiny 
by  bidding  his  servant  call  him  every  morning : 
"  Awake,  Sir  Count,  you  have  great  things  to  do.''* 
lie  impoverished  himself  in  his  ostentatious  and 
luxurious  patronage  of  letters,  and  then  made  light 
of  his  penury,  as  an  interesting  phase  of  human 
experience,  which  it  became  a  philosopher,  like  him, 
to  pass  through.  Carrying  out  this  idea,  he  com 
mitted  himself,  in  succession,  not  only  to  all  the 
other  situations  of  life,  but  to  the  unprincipled 
practice  of  the  whole  catalogue  of  vices, — as  a 
simple  experiment  in  physics  and  ethics.  Even 
suicide  was  included  in  this  list  of  amateur  mani 
pulations,  though  for  some  reason  or  other  he  car 
ried  that  only  so  far  as  to  blow  out  one  of  his 
eyes.  With  extravagant  and  profane  laudations  his 
admirers  celebrated  this  escape.  "His  hour,"  they 
said,  "  wras  not  yet  come.  God  raises  him  from 
the  abyss ;  sheds  over  him  a  religious  inspiration 
which  animates,  sanctifies  and  renews  his  whole 
being ;  a  hymn  of  love  is  poured  forth  from  that 

*  "  Levez-vous,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  vous  avez  de  grandes  choses  a 
faire." 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  171 

mutilated  body ;  the  divine  man  is  manifested ; 
the  new  Christianity  is  sent  to  the  world ;  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  come  upon  earth." 

The  St.  Simonian  Socialism  was  an  attempt  to 
carry  out  the  definite  and  regular  relations  of 
physical  science  into  the  government  or  rather  the 
arrangement  of  Society ;  which  it  was  believed,  by 
a  false  analogy,  could  be  done  with  abstract  cer 
tainty,  by  rule.  The  author  of  the  system  called 
it  "  Physico-political."  Property,  competition,  mar 
riage,  were  to  be  summarily  abolished.  Inclination 
was  to  govern.  Christianity  was  caricatured.  The 
system  was  a  "carnal  hierarchy," — the  proposed 
leaders  were  a  priesthood.  The  originator  was  him 
self,  during  life,  and  after  that  his  foremost  disciple, 
to  be  the  great  hierophant.  In  fact,  he  claimed 
the  character  of  divinity, — profanely  ranking  him 
self  with  Moses  and  the  Saviour,  saying  that 
"  Moses  had  promised  to  men  universal  fraternity, 
Jesus  Christ  had  prepared  it,  St.  Simon  had  real 
ized  it." 

Mutual  and  natural  human  love  is  here  made 
the  organizing  principle.  Industry  is  the  working 
power  of  life.  "  Sanctify  yourselves  by  joy  and 
labor,"  says  the  new  Christianism.  This  ("  New 
Christianism")  is  the  title  of  his  religious  specula 
tions.  Other  parts  of  his  system  were  published  un- 


172  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

der  the  titles  of  "  The  Reorganization  of  European 
Society,"  "  The  Industrial  System/'  "  Catechism  of 
Industrial  Methods,"  "  Political,  Moral,  and  Philo 
sophical  Discussions,"  and  "  Opinions." 

According  to  this  form  of  Socialism,  the  distri 
bution  of  property  was  to  be  determined  by  the 
relative  capacity  of  men ;  whereas,  according  to 
Fourier,  capacity  had  to  divide  with  labor  and 
capital.  At  the  death  of  an  individual  his  prop 
erty  reverts  to  the  Simonian  community — the  secu 
lar  church.  A  general  education  was  to  be  pro 
vided  for  all  children  till  they  were  old  enough  to 
show  their  capacity,  and  then  chacun  a  sa  capacite. 

About  a  quarter  of  a  century  since,  there  emerged 
from  the  confused  and  motley  people  known  as  St. 
Simonians  three  several  parties,  under  as  many 
leaders — Enfantin,  Rodriguez,  and  Basard.  Each  at 
tempted  his  own  organizations,  or  families,  but  they 
quarreled  with  each  other.  At  last  the  two  former 
were  brought  to  trial  for  misdemeanors,  and  under 
went  a  temporary  punishment.  Enfantin  appeared 
in  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  pointing  to  his  hand 
some  face,  demanded  homage  on  the  score  of  his 
persona]  beauty.  When  some  of  the  leaders  ap 
plied  for  exemption  from  military  duty,  on  the 
impudent  pretence  that  they  were  ecclesiastics,  the 
courts  ruled  that  they  were  not  a  religious  order. 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  173 

but  otherwise  let  their  extravagances  and  sensual 
carousals  pass  unnoticed,  till  finally  the  whole 
scheme  fell  to  pieces,  and  disappeared. 

These  projects  have  not  been  confined  to  France. 
They  have  struck  root,  for  a  short  and  sickly 
growth,  in  practical  Great  Britain  and  America. 
The  same  year  that  Fourier  was  born  brought 
also  his  English  competitor, — a  Socialist  whose 
scheme  was  far  less  daring,  less  presumptuous, 
and  less  visionary  than  that  of  the  Frenchman 
who  so  violently  assailed  it  for  its  absurdity.  Rob 
ert  Owen  became  a  cotton-machinist  at  Manches 
ter,  and  afterwards  entered  upon  the  manufacturing 
experiment  at  New  Lanark,  on  the  Clyde,  in 
Scotland,  which  proved  an  interesting  comment 
upon  his  theories.  Actuated  by  a  sincere  and 
humane  desire  to  better  the  condition  of  the  de 
pendent  and  laboring  classes,  especially  in  the  pe 
culiar  exposures  incident  to  British  manufacturing 
towns,  he  undertook  so  to  arrange  that  whole  com 
munity,  as  to  lighten  their  expenses  and  increase 
their  conveniences.  Noticing  how  much  the  appli 
cation  of  superior  energy  and  intelligence,  in  im 
proving  the  circumstances  of  a  people,  assists  their 
culture  and  development,  he  was  fallaciously  led  to 
suppose  that  all  human  reform  must  consist  in 
changing  these  external  circumstances,  and  so,  from 


174  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

a  peculiar  instance,  fell  into  a  false  generalization. 
Because  one  shrewd  and  active  manager  like  him 
self,  having  capital  to  start  with,  in  a  special  branch 
of  productive  industry,  already  brought  elsewhere  to 
great  perfection,  could  organize  a  successful  local 
settlement,  keeping  up  a  constant  commerce  with 
Society  in  its  normal  forms,  and  under  a  stable 
government,  he  seems  to  have  supposed  that  all 
populations  must  contain  in  them  the  means  of  first 
rising  above  and  so  ruling  their  own  conditions, 
with  mixed  employments,  complicated  interests,  and 
a  thousand  other  specific  modifying  causes.  A  town 
is  laid  out  in  the  form  of  a  parallelogram,  with 
buildings  for  two  or  three  thousand  souls,  with 
gardens  and  farms  and  agricultural  edifices  on  each 
side,  land  enough  to  furnish  all  the  necessary  pro 
duce  of  that  climate, — the  dwelling  houses  forming 
one  side  of  the  oblong  square,  a  general  residence 
and  schools  for  the  boys  at  one  end,  similar  pro 
visions  for  the  girls  at  the  other  end, — the  children 
being  taken  from  their  parents  and  boarded  together 
in  their  second  year,  a  common  eating-house  or  or 
dinary  in  the  centre,  play  grounds  and  gardens  in 
the  area,  laundry  and  bleaching  grounds  behind  the 
school  houses.  There  is  a  suitable  alternation  of 
labor  and  recreation.  The  working  hours  are  from 
six  in  the  morning  to  seven  in  the  evening.  The 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  175 

school  is  held  from  eight  in  the  evening  till  ten. 
Amusements  are  provided  by  system,  as  being  fa 
vorable  to  morality.  The  community  of  goods  is 
only  partial,  but  the  plan  of  industrial  cooperation 
is  distinct. 

Whatever  Mr.  Owen  may  have  borrowed  from 
the  Moravians,  or  United  Brethren,  it  is  very  clear 
what  he  left  out,  viz.,  their  religion.  With  him  a 
happy  and  correct  social  state  here  is  the  ultimate 
object  of  man's  aspirations.  All  systems  of  faith 
and  worship  he  refers  to  prejudice,  superstition  and 
ignorance.  The  sanctions  of  a  future  life  are  set 
aside  as  not  only  chimerical  but  mischievous.  Chris 
tianity  is  superseded. 

Carried  away  by  the  prosperity  of  his  village  at 
New  Lanark,  which,  after  all,  appears  to  have  been 
due  about  as  much  to  the  practical  sagacity  and 
benevolence  of  his  predecessor  and  father-in-law, 
David  Dale,  as  to  his  own  theory,  which  ought 
certainly  to  be  tested  by  a  trial  of  more  than 
one  or  two  generations  before  a  strong  argument 
can  be  built  upon  it, — this  amiable  unbeliever  sup 
posed  he  had  struck  upon  a  universal  cure  for  so 
cial  evils.  To  prove  this  on  a  larger  scale,  ho 
began  a  parallelogram  at  Orbiston  ;  but  the  design 
fell  through  for  want  of  funds,  after  one  angle  of 
the  structure  was  erected.  The  inmates  of  this 


176  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

angle,  while  they  stayed,  were  not  lovely  and 
pleasant  in  their  lives ;  the  country  people  called 
the  place  Babel,  for  reasons.  In  1825  he  pur 
chased  the  place  known  as  New  Harmony,  in  In 
diana,  planted  a  colony  of  nearly  a  thousand  peo 
ple,  turned  the  churches  into  workshops,  substituted 
singing  and  dancing  for  public  prayer,  proclaimed 
marriage  a  temporary,  dissoluble  relation,  removed 
the  obstacle  to  a  separation  of  husband  and  wife 
that  exists  in  the  children  by  putting  them  into  a 
common  charge,  published  a  Declaration  of  Mental 
Independence,  July  4th,  182G,  but  soon  found  he 
had  to  manage  discontent  and  disorder,  was  dis 
gusted,  and  returned  across  the  ocean,  escaping 
from  a  broken-down  enterprise.* 

The  neighboring  State  of  Illinois  was  to  see,  still 
nearer  to  our  own  time,  another  of  these  abortive 
undertakings,  —  that  conducted  by  Cabet,  another 
creature  of  the  modern  revolutionary  spirit  in 
France.  To  carry  out  his  preposterous  project,  a 
compound  of  financial  and  political  speculation,  this 
plausible  adventurer,  in  whom  it  is  difficult  to  draw 
the  line  between  honest  self-delusion  and  villainous 
imposture,  gave  out  that  he  had  bought  a  million 

*  See  his  "  Observations  on  the  Manufacturing  System,"  "  New 
View  of  Society,"  and  "  Memorial  to  the  Governments  of  England  and 
America." 


SOCIAL      THEORIES.  177 

acres  of  American  land,  at  Icaria,  on  the  Red 
River.  There  he  proposed  to  plant  a  community, 
on  the  socialist  plan,  holding  out  the  promise  of 
a  luxuriant  soil,  delightful  scenery,  and  everything 
favorable  to  an  easy  mastery  of  the  means  of  liv 
ing.  By  a  newspaper,  called  La  Populaire,  and 
other  devices,  he  succeeded  in  alluring  some  five 
hundred  emigrants  to  embark,  in  1848,  for  this 
gorgeous  western  Paradise,  —  having  first  gained 
assent  to  the  incredible  regulation  that  all  their 
individual  property  should  be  unconditionally  commit 
ted  to  their  leader,  himself,  —  a  stupendous  stretch 
of  communistic  confidence.  Landing  at  New  Or 
leans,  they  met  rather  appalling  accounts  of  the 
Icarian  Eden  from  some  returning  pioneers,  but 
still  pressed  hopefully  up  the  Mississippi  ;  tra 
versed  a  land  route  of  two  or  three  hundred  miles, 
— many  perishing  by  the  way,  some  dropping  out 
of  the  party  and  going  back,  fleeced  and  dejected, 
to  their  native  country, — the  persevering  survivors 
arriving  at  last  at  the  promised  land,  to  find  there, 
in  the  expressive  language  of  the  record,  "  a  des 
ert,  a  few  ruined  huts,  and  an  abundance  of 
graves."  "  There  is  no  slavery,"  wrote  one  of 
them,  "  so  hard  as  Communism  in  action."*  In  a 

*  "  Les  Socialistes  depuis  Fourier"     Par  M.  Jules  Breynat.     Paris, 
1850. 

12 


178  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

short  time,  Cabet,  gathering  up  as  many  of  the  frag 
ments  of  resolution  and  baggage  as  he  could  find, 
left,  passed  up  to  Nauvoo,  then  recently  vacated  by 
the  Mormons  on  their  removal  to  Utah,  and  there 
remained  just  long  enough  to  fail  utterly,  and  to 
subject  himself  to  a  criminal  prosecution,  on  the 
charge  of  obtaining  goods  on  false  pretences. 

In  1840,  a  petition  was  sent  to  the  British  House 
of  Lords,  with  forty  thousand  signers  from  the  single 
city  of  Birmingham,  praying  that  measures  might 
be  taken  for  the  suppression  of  Socialism.  Nothing 
effectual  was  done  by  Parliament ;  indeed,  a  brief 
reaction  took  place  in  favor  of  the  Socialists.  But 
it  soon  subsided ;  the  publications  ceased ;  and  the 
cause  in  all  England  died  out. 

These  repeated  miscarriages  of  Communism,  re 
garded  in  the  light  of  the  moral  principles  of  So 
ciety,  are  not  surprising ;  and  yet,  considering  the 
tact  and  ability  of  some  of  the  projecters  of 
these  systems,  the  credulous  constitution  of  hu 
man  nature  as  respects  schemes  of  pecuniary  profit, 
and  the  natural  effect  of  glowing  descriptions  of  a 
leisurely  and  novel  mode  of  subsistence,  there  is 
room  for  some  surprise  that  their  victims  should 
have  been  so  few,  and  their  fate  so  uniform,  so 
prompt,  and  so  decisive.  In  1848  a  flood  of  com 
munistic  literature  broke  loose  over  Europe,  and  for 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  179 

a  while  was  thirstily  drunk  up,  especially  in  Ger 
many  and  France.  Now,  there  is  scarcely  such  a 
literature  visible,  outside  of  the  libraries,  on  the 
Continent. 

Of  the  three  contemporary  authors  who  are  best 
known  as  Socialists  in  their  philosophy,  though 
without  heading  any  actual  communities,  the  first, 
in  point  of  intellectual  power,  is  Auguste  Comte,— 
a  writer  who  by  his  frigid  temperament,  his  unsym 
pathetic  doctrines  of  man,  and  his  atheism,  not 
less  than  by  his  arrogant  erudition,  is  separated 
from  popular  interests,  and  exerts  but  a  feeble  in 
fluence  on  his  own  age.  His  system  of  Positive 
Philosophy,  so  far  as  it  can  be  defined  in  a  sen 
tence,  teaches  that  every  possible  department  of 
thought  and  action  is  finally  to  be  brought  into 
the  domain  of  the  exact  and  fixed  sciences  by 
the  domination  of  the  understanding;  that  the  cos- 
mical  order  of  creation  forbids  the  supposition  of 
a  Personal  Creative  Will,  or  a  God;  and  that  the 
last  of  the  sciences  to  be  positively  perfected  will 
be  Sociology,  under  which  all  men  will  have  their 
positions  of  higher  and  lower,  advantage  and  sub 
ordination,  absolutely  determined  as  by  a  decree  of 
fate,  under  a  rule,  not  to  say  a  tyranny,  of  the 
strongest  heads.  He  expects  entire  acquiescence  in 
this  arrangement.  As  this  is  to  be  the  final 


180  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

achievement  of  perfected  science,  of  course  the 
realization  of  his  ideal  of  social  harmony  is  post 
poned  to  an  extremely  distant  future. 

Proudhon  and  Louis  Blanc  both  aim  at  the  vir 
tual  destruction  of  property ;  the  former  in  the 
spirit  of  a  destructionist,  the  latter  in  that  of  po 
litical  ambition.  Proudhon  would  level,  at  once,  all 
distinctions  of  wealth,  throw  the  world's  value  into 
a  common  fund,  and  let  individuals  draw  out,  not 
indeed  by  a  general  scramble,  but  by  the  definite 
proportion  of  each  one's  service.  Accumulation 
should  never  go  beyond  that  point.  These  notions 
are  broached  by  their  author  with  such  sweeping 
negations,  such  wanton  and  insulting  contempt  of 
all  existing  rights,  and  such  hostility  to  the  pre 
vailing  convictions  and  institutions  of  mankind,  both 
religious  and  civil,  that  even  their  ample  promise 
to  the  depressed  classes  has  never  succeeded  in 
conciliating  to  them  an  extensive  favor. 

Louis  Blanc  has  become  known  to  the  world, 
not  only  by  his  theory  on  the  organization  of  la 
bor,*  but  by  his  appearance  as  a  member  of  the 
French  Provisional  Government  of  1848.  Indeed,  the 
persistency  of  his  party,  in  attempting  to  carry 
into  that  national  administration  socialistic  opinions, 
has  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  efficient  causes 

*  Organisation  du  Travail. 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  181 

which  divided  and  defeated  the  Republicans,  re 
stored  the  empire,  and  lifted  Napoleon  III.  to  the 
throne.  The  enemy  that  Louis  Blanc  assails,  with 
a  courage,  cleverness  and  eloquence  that  have  in 
them  something  admirable,  is  Industrial  Competition. 
This,  as  it  now  operates,  he  holds  to  be  the  grand 
parent  of  all  disorders,  miseries  and  vices,  and  the 
curse  of  civilization.  It  is,  he  says,  unfair,  op 
pressive,  foolish,  selfish,  sordid,  jealous,  mean  and 
wicked.  It  is  specially  contrived  to  crush  the 
hard-working  classes.  This  line  of  vituperative  as 
sault  he  pursues  with  such  spirit  through  a  brilliant 
series  of  paradoxes  and  sophistries,  outvying  all  the 
political  economists,  as  to  entertain  the  unconcerned, 
while  his  more  than  democratic  expressions  of  love 
for  the  people  are  plainly  meant  to  inspire  them 
with  enthusiasm.  His  objections  overlook  the  law 
of  demand  and  supply  in  labor,  the  stimulus  com 
petition  gives  to  exertion,  and  the  regular  counter 
balance  of  human  desires.  Thus  he  thinks  that 
competition  leads  to  the  manufacture  of  several 
times  as  many  articles  as  will  be  used,  only  the 
cheapest  being  bought;  which  does  not  turn  out 
to  be  the  fact.  He  thinks  the  workman  who  un 
derbids  will  always  get  the  job;  whereas  the  qual 
ity  of  the  work  is  found  to  have  much  to  do  with 
that,  and  men  will  not  bid  below  living  wages. 


182  SOCIAL       THEORIES. 

He  thinks  the  bachelor  will  of  course  get  the  work 
away  from  the  man  with  a  wife,  and  still  more 
from  the  man  with  a  wife  and  children ; — whereas 
it  is  found  that  a  majority  of  men  prefer  a  wife 
and  children  with  less  profit  to  being  bachelors 
with  more. 

His  favorite  idea  is  that  all  men  should  labor 
from  impulses  of  honor ;  that,  to  give  them  a 
start,  the  government  should  undertake  the  whole 
social  economy,  and  raise  a  loan  sufficient  to  sup 
port  the  entire  working  community,  in  public  shops, 
till  the  system  gets  into  operation.  At  the  end  of 
the  year,  the  profits  are  to  be  divided  into  four 
parts,  one  part  to  go  to  a  sinking  fund  to  dis 
charge  the  loan,  another  to  provide  a  hospital  for 
the  sick  and  infirm,  another  to  be  kept  as  a  re 
serve  for  special  cases,  and  the  fourth  to  supply 
the  actual  wants  of  the  healthy  laborers. 

The  only  opportunity  afforded  the  author  for  the 
proof  of  this  plan,  was  in  getting  a  large  amount 
of  tailoring  done  for  the  uniforms  of  the  Garde 
Mobile,  in  the  days  of  the  republic.  Fifteen  hun 
dred  tailors  were  assembled  and  told  that  they 
should  have  two  francs  a  day  while  they  worked ; 
that  for  all  the  articles  made  the  same  price  should 
be  paid  as  was  paid  to  the  army  contractors,  under 
the  monarchy ;  that  the  total  of  this  amount,  after 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  183 

deducting  the  advance-money  of  fifteen  hundred 
times  two  francs,  should  be  distributed  equally 
among  the  tailors.  On  reckoning  up,  at  the  end  of 
the  job,  it  was  found  that  there  were  not  uniforms 
enough  made  to  furnish  even  the  twro  francs  a  day. 
Each  man  seemed  to  think  that,  as  all  his  earn 
ings,  over  and  above  that  sum,  were  to  be  so  dis 
tributed  that  only  a  fifteen  hundredth  part  of  them 
would  reach  himself,  there  was  not  much  motive  to 
hurry  his  fingers.  Louis  Blanc  declared,  in  some 
vexation,  that  the  experiment  was  not  a  fair  one, 
and  was  laughed  at  by  Proudhon. 

The  Socialists  never  agree.  Like  Fourier,  Louis 
Blanc  ridicules  and  lashes  St.  Simon  ;*  Proudhon 
ridicules  and  lashes  Louis  Blanc.f  The  famous 
double  formula  of  Louis  Blanc  is  this  :  From  every 
one  according  to  Ms  aptitudes.  To  every  one  accord* 
ing  to  Ids  needs.  But  Proudhon  is  acute  enough  to 
see  through  this,  and  asks,  in  his  saucy  way, 
"  Please,  Mr.  Louis  Blanc,  who  is  to  judge  of  the 
capacity,  and  of  the  wants  ?  You  say  that  my 
capacity  is  one  hundred  :  I  maintain  that  it  is 
only  ninety.  You  say  that  my  need  is  ninety :  I 
maintain  that  it  is  one  hundred.  Here  we  are  dif 
fering  by  twenty,  as  to  the  need  and  the  ca- 

*  Histoire  de  Dix  Arts.     Bruxelles,  1847. 

f  Idee  Generate  dc  la  Revolution  au  XIX.  Siecle.     Paris,   1851 


184  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

pacity.  Who  is  to  be  umpire  between  the  society 
and  me  ?  If  the  society  enforces  its  opinion,  I 
quit,  and  your  association  is  broken.  Or  if  I  stay 
and  succumb,  your  principle  is  broken." 

Still  another  instructive  experiment  was  tried  by 
a  French  philosopher,  a  few  years  ago,  in  Algeria. 
Marshal  Bugeaud,  actuated  by  an  ardent  desire  to 
destroy  social  inequalities,  founded  a  colony  for 
that  purpose,  which  proved  signally  unsuccessful. 
He  then  wrote  a  candid  and  manly  pamphlet,  with 
this  explicit  testimony :  "  Absolute  equality  does 
not  belong  to  this  world.  It  is  God  himself  that 
has  determined  this.  The  Socialists  believe  they 
have  found  equality  in  association ;  they  are  de 
ceived  ;  they  will  obtain  only  an  equality  of 
misery.* 

From  three  sources,  —  Christianity,  history,  and 
the  observations  of  common  sense,  —  we  have  the 
means  of  a  judgment  on  every  community  taken 
apart  from  those  majestic  currents  of  social  move 
ment,  which,  with  their  mysteriously  mingled  ele 
ments  of  the  divine  and  human  will,  sweep  stead 
ily  along  the  field  of  the  ages.  These  projects  are 
weighed  in  the  balances;  and,  thus  far,  if  not  for 
crime,  for  folly,  are  found  wanting.  As  a  tranquil 
.retreat  for  eccentric,  broken-hearted,  or  impracticable 

*   Les  Socialises  ct  le  Travail  en   Commun.     Paris,  1848. 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  185 

people,  it  would  seem  as  if  there  were  an  occa 
sional  place,  in  our  diversified  social  scenery,  for 
such  establishments ;  only  then  they  are  not  what 
the  theorists  propose.  Besides,  people  of  those 
classes,  when  huddled  together  without  the  healing 
and  correcting  influences  of  domestic  life,  are  apt, 
as  we  have  seen  in  cases  near  by,  to  turn  out 
uncomfortable  and  irritating  to  each  other,  and  soon 
to  scatter  in  mutual  disgust.* 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  argument :  it  may  be  ob 
jected  to  Communism,  first,  that  so  far  as  AVC  can 
see,  from  the  designs  and  analogies  of  nature,  man 
was  meant  to  be  put  in  trust  with  personal  pos 
sessions,  to  have  them,  manage  them,  and  be  an 
swerable  for  them.  His  passions  and  their  respon 
sibilities,  certainly,  are  his  own,  and  inalienable. 
As  Lieber  has  justly  said,  "  Property  is  nothing 
else  than  the  application  of  man's  individuality  to 

*  And  therefore,  with  another,  who  is  neither  afraid  of  the  new  nor 
too  confident  of  the  old,  "  do  I  mistrust  the  theorist.  He  hath  said  in 
his  heart  that  God's  world,  till  now,  hath  been  but  a  rough  draft  on 
slate,  and  saith  that  he  hath  a  sponge.  Nine  times  in  ten  doth  he  sit 
perched  upon  an  income  which  is  a  dead  branch  of  the  living  tree  of 
industry,  and  spout  generalities  outside  of  the  real  needs  of  to-day. 
Not  so,  brother  !  This  is  a  fight :  come  down  and  take  thy  side,  and 
do  battle  for  the  most  right  of  the  two  combatants.  Lock  up  thy 
head,  which  would  fain  teach  us  that  one  man  is  more  than  all  men  ; 
open  thy  heart,  where  there  be  treasures  yet  untold  ;  let  thy  hand  do 
with  its  might  whatsoever  it  findeth  to  do,  because  idleness  is  the  root 
of  much  evil." 


186  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

external  things."  And  a  higher  authority  than  this, 
while  it  bids  us,  in  the  Saviour's  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice,  bear  one  another's  burdens,  enjoins  on 
each  of  us  the  solemn  obligation,  "  Every  man 
shall  bear  his  own  burden  •"  and,  "  hast  thou  faith, 
have  it  to  thyself." 

Secondly,  if  property  is  wrong  in  principle,  if, 
as  Proudhon  and  other  doctrinaires  declare,  "  prop 
erty  is  robbery,"  then  the  association,  community, 
barrack  or  phalanx,  has  no  right  to  it;  and  until 
you  can  get  the  whole  human  race  to  join  the 
community  at  once,  you  will  have  one  society 
holding  property  by  title  against  the  rest,  and  so 
recognizing  the  principle  of  property. 

Thirdly,  Communism  takes  away  one  grand  stim 
ulus  to  industry,  the  actual  necessity  of  exertion 
in  an  honest,  manly,  independent  struggle  with  the 
reluctances  and  resistances  of  nature,  and  so  thwarts 
the  ordained  economy  of  Providence. 

Fourthly,  if  Communism  abates  avarice  and  cov- 
etousness,  as  it  claims,  the  reply  is  twofold  :  so 
do  other  and  healthier  forces,  like  Christian  princi 
ple,  abate  and  curb  them ;  besides,  it  encourages 
other  sins  just  as  contrary  to  God's  law  and  man's 
welfare,  like  sluggishness  and  license. 

Fifthly,  the  ideas  of  Communism,  by  a  contagion 
of  passions,  a  sympathy  of  ideas,  and  a  force  of 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  187 

circumstances,  too  plain  to  require  amplification  of 
statement,  tend  straightway  to  abolish  home,  marriage, 
and  purity,  thus  striking  a  blow,  fatal  and  execrable, 
at  the  principle  of  personal  chastity  which  lies  at 
the  basis  of  Christian  civilization.  Communism  aims 
not  only  to  regulate  property  and  employments,  but 
to  reconstruct  the  domestic  relations,  and  thus  it 
enters  the  domain  of  morals.  And  if,  as  has  been 
wittily  but  sophistically  said,  "  the  stoical  scheme 
of  supplying  our  wants,  by  lopping  off  our  desires, 
is  like  cutting  off  our  feet  when  w^e  want  shoes," 
the  communist  scheme,  of  regulating  our  desires 
by  indulging  them,  is  like  checking  a  train  that  is 
running  too  fast  down  a  hill  by  taking  off  the 
brakes. 

Sixthly,  the  practice  of  the  early  Christians,  in 
the  primitive  church,  makes  nothing  for  the  So 
cialist's  argument,  since  it  was  obviously  local, 
temporary,  adopted  to  meet  a  special  exigency,  and 
has  no  divine  sanction. 

The  grand  objection  is,  that  the  whole  system 
interrupts  the  natural  action  of  the  laws  by  which 
God  meant  Society  to  work  out  the  final  harmony 
of  individual  and  general  welfare.  It  unsettles  the 
balance  between  individual  responsibility  and  social 
influence.  It  introduces  a  mechanical  estimate  of 
spiritual  things.  Owen  betrays  this  materialism, 


188  SOCIAL     THEORIES. 

perhaps  inadvertently,  when,  in  advocating  the  sep 
aration  of  children  from  their  parents,  on  the 
ground  that  parental  fondness  stands  in  the  way  of 
the  improvement  of  the  offspring,  he  adds  that  pa 
rents  have  not  the  requisite  machinery  for  the 
"  manufacture  of  character." 

Beyond  question,  the  most  comprehensive  and 
most  fatal  fallacy  in  all  Socialism  is  its  assumption 
that  man's  highest  glory  is  self-gratification,  instead 
of  self-control  and  affectionate  submission  to  God. 
Here  is  its  express  denial  of  the  central  truth  of 
Christianity.  Here  is  its  inwrought  necessity  of  de 
feat. 

Throwing  out  some  unimportant  schemes,  like  that 
of  Pierre  Leroux,  the  sketch  I  have  given  em 
braces,  I  believe,  a  notice  of  the  principal  features, 
though  with  but  little  of  the  detail,  of  all  the 
more  conspicuous  forms  that  Socialist  speculation 
has  assumed.  This  outline,  with  the  added  reasons 
for  distrusting  them  all,  better  exhibits  both  the 
inherent  weakness  in  their  radical  principle,  and 
the  repugnance  of  Providence  to  them,  than  any 
other  method  of  treatment  I  could  adopt.  And 
thus  it  best  serves  the  purposes  of  my  plan. 
Those  divine  laws,  to  which  your  attention  has  be 
fore  been  directed,  as  penetrating  the  structure  of 
the  world's  Society,  presiding  over  its  progress, 


SOCIAL     THEORIES.  189 

and  determining  its  moral  development,  are  ade 
quate  and  immutable.  By  obedience  to  them,  we 
render  our  little  contribution  to  the  sacred  designs 
of  God.  All  systems  that  fly  in  their  face,  or  at 
tempt  to  supersede  them  by  mortal  ingenuity,  or 
seek  to  hurry  too  much  the  sublime  movement  of 
history,  must  perish.  Room  for  Christian  considera 
tion  of  abuses,  for  cautious  experiment,  for  con 
scientious  reform,  stands  ever  open,  and  the  call  is 
loud.  Just  where  the  line  shall  run  between  an 
effectual  service  of  those  laws  and  a  vain  innova 
tion, — and  so  which  of  our  attempts  shall  right 
eously  succeed,  and  which  shall  as  righteously  fail, 
it  is  not  for  any  antecedent  opinion  dogmatically 
to  predict.  Poised  still  between  the  good  of  the 
individual  and  the  rights  of  the  whole,  the  great 
welfare  of  the  world  makes  its  gradual  advance. 
The  religion  of  Christ  is  our  absolute  guide,  in 
trying  to  forward  it.  The  Almighty  Father  is  over 
it,  to  correct  our  mistakes.  His  eternal  Spirit  is 
within  it,  to  bear  it  forever  on. 


LECTURE    VI. 

SOCIETY    IN   RELATION    TO    THE    INTELLECT. 

IT  has  been  maintained*  that  Society  exercises  a 
direct  formative  influence,  of  remarkable  power,  on 
individual  character, — the  argument  being  that  as 
human  character  is  that  product,  in  all  his  creation, 
on  which  God  sets  the  supreme  value,  so  the  agent 
which  is  expressly  adapted  to  develope  and  mould 
it  must  be  one  illustration  of  his  designs.  I  also 
placed  before  you  evidences  that  not  only  is  the 
individual  soul  made  receptive  of  this  social  educa 
tion,  but  the  whole  social  system  is  framed  into  a 
living  network  of  reciprocal  advantage,  where,  both 
consciously  and  unconsciously,  but  by  the  will  of 
the  Creator,  the  members  of  the  human  family  mu 
tually  act  and  react  upon  one  another.f  In  these 
two  branches  of  the  subject,  those  elements  in 
the  constitution  of  human  nature  brought  especially 
into  view,  as  the  powers  of  character,  were  the 
Conscience,  the  Affections  and  the  Will.  It  is  to 
these  interior  and  vital  forces  of  man  that  we 

*  Lecture  iii.  f  Lecture  iv. 


192  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

have     hitherto     seen     Society    ministering,    as     both 
their    servant   and    their   preceptor. 

But  there  is  another  part  of  man,  not  yet  put 
into  particular  prominence  —  his  intellect.  If  it 
needed  any  affirmation  of  its  dignity,  we  might 
find  it,  sufficiently,  in  the  very  terms  of  our  gen 
eral  subject,  which  refers  us  not  only  to  the 
Power  and  the  Goodness,  but  the  Wisdom  of  God. 
For,  if  we  adore  the  wisdom  in  him,  that  is  the 
best  argument  for  esteeming  that  intellectual  en 
dowment  of  his  creature  and  his  child,  by  which 
the  wisdom  that  is  human  is  both  taken  in  and 
given  out.  Society,  in  its  manifold  workings,  and 
its  inexhaustible  demands,  is  a  mighty  helper  to 
man's  mind.  It  quickens  and  directs  it.  It  fur 
nishes  both  a  stimulus  and  an  object.  The  intellect 
is  in  account  with  Society  by  credit  and  by  debt. 

It  would  not  serve  either  the  interest  or  the 
accuracy  of  the  treatment,  to  resort  to  the  fa 
miliar  psychological  distributions  of  the  faculties. 
What  we  want,  rather,  is  to  regard  the  mind  very 
much  as  it  is  met  and  accosted  by  Society  itself, 
as  a  vital  unit, — not  a  mental  skeleton,  but  an 
organ  of  life.  One  twofold  division,  however,  I 
must  ask  you  carefully  to  observe.  The  mind 
must  be  considered  both  as  a  recipient  and  as  a 
producer ;  not  as  active  and  passive, — that  is  a  com- 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  193 

mon  but  here  a  false  distinction.  The  inind  is  just 
as  active  in  acquiring,  or  properly  receiving,  as  in 
communicating.  The  old  notion  that  the  business 
of  education  is  to  pour  facts  into  the  pupil's 
memory,  as  oranges  are  dropped  into  a  box?  or 
merchandise  is  stowed  in  the  hold  of  a  ship,  is 
effectually  exploded.  The  maxim  of  all  education 
that  deserves  the  name  is,  Rouse  the  faculties, 
sharpen  the  perceptions,  then  spread  out  the 
orderly  phenomena  of  nature  and  history,  and  let 
the  hungry  and  discriminating  intellect  take  hold. 
Knowledge  is  not  properly  acquired  till  it  is  as 
similated,  taken  up  into  the  soul's  chyle  and  blood 
and  fibre,  and  made  a  part  of  the  juice  and  sub 
stance  of  the  man.  And  this  is  no  passive  pro 
cess.  It  tasks  every  energy ;  it  puts  all  the  mus 
cles  of  the  mind  at  work;  it  sweats  its  brow. 
Hearing  a  nutritious  discourse,  reading  Plato,  or 
Bacon,  or  Humboldt,  learning  a  new  language  or 
science,  should  be  like  climbing  Mount  Washington, 
without  beast  or  machine,  on  your  own  feet. 
Merely  to  be  instructed,  in  any  lawful  sense  of  the 
word,  is  a  labor. 

Both  as  a  recipient  and  as  a  producer,  then,  we 
consider  the  intellect  to  be  indebted  to  Society. 
As  a  recipient  it  has  Society  directly  and  indi 
rectly  for  its  teacher.  It  is  Society  that  organizes 

13 


194  SOCIETY      IN      RELATION 

education, — opening  the  school-room  or  lecture-room, 
constructing  the  apparatus,  providing  and  multiply 
ing  the  materials,  collecting  the  library.  If  we 
look  at  the  school,  the  college,  the  institute,  the 
lyceum,  the  university,  the  observatory?  we  shall 
see  at  once  how  impossible  any  such  institution 
would  be,  but  for  that  assemblage  of  human  per 
sons  and  purposes  to  which  we  have  given  this 
name, — Society.  Besides,  as  we  shall  see,  Society 
becomes,  by  suggestions  and  experiences,  a  more 
direct  intellectual  helper. 

As  a  producer,  the  intellect  finds  in  Society  an 
influence  that  at  once  stimulates  and  guides  it. 
The  principal  methods  of  intellectual  production  are 
conversation,  specific  tuition,  formal  discourse,  au 
thorship,  and  the  arts  of  design.  In  each  of  these 
the  mind  is  found  in  acts  of  expression,  by  signs, 
by  language,  by  writing,  or  by  color,  form  and 
sound,  as  in  pictures,  sculpture,  architecture,  land 
scape  gardening,  music.  There  is,  in  these,  a  combi 
nation  of  the  forms  of  thought.  There  is  a  recon 
struction  of  scientific  facts.  There  is  a  statement 
of  natural  phenomena.  There  is  an  interpretation 
of  laws.  There  is  an  imaginative  representation 
of  ideal  truth,  under  the  types  of  things  that  are 
seen  and  heard.  These  are  the  mind's  creative  op 
erations.  Often,  to  be  sure,  two  processes  go  on 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  195 

together, — teaching  being  found  one  of  the  surest 
modes  of  learning,  and  the  productive  faculty  en 
larging  the  intuitive  and  receptive.  Here  also  we 
have  to  see  how,  in  original  combinations,  the  in 
tellect  is  urged  on,  provoked,  directed,  by  the 
importunities  and  necessities  of  Society. 

Lay  the  foundation  of  the  argument,  therefore, 
with  this  first  principle,  that  God  sets  a  positive 
value  upon  intellectual  activity.  I  do  not  say,  for 
I  do  not  see,  that  we  are  anywhere  taught  that 
God  values  intellectual  activity  for  itself  alone, — as 
an  end.  He  does  not  so  value  it  that  the  might 
iest  mind  can  atone  for  the  least  moral  or  spirit 
ual  obliquity.  He  values  it  simply  and  exactly  as 
a  power.  And  that  power,  so  long  as  the  human 
will  is  free  and  the  choice  of  evil  is  open,  must 
be  a  power  that  works  two  ways,  depending  on  a 
moral  control.  The  momentum  of  the  engine  is 
just  as  effectual  for  mischief  and  disorder  as  for 
truth  and  right,  —  for  Beelzebub  as  for  Christ. 
Knowledge  is  not  the  world's  Saviour.  The  king 
dom  of  heaven  is  not  built  in  the  brain.  Proba 
bly  the  saving  gospel  of  simplicity  and  humility, 
of  faith  and  love,  hardly  encounters  a  more  un 
promising  or  more  desperate  resistance  than  the 
pride,  the  self-sufficiency,  of  a  congregation  of  in 
tellectual  sinners.  And  therefore  I  come  to  this 


196  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

topic  the  more  gladly  and  eagerly,  as  one  that 
lies  directly  on  the  path  of  one  of  the  perilous 
tendencies  of  our  times.  The  dogma  is  extant 
that  knowledge  is  an  ultimate  good  in  itself,  irre 
spective  of  its  aims,  irrespective  of  the  question 
whether  it  has  any  aims,  and  apart  from  the  qual 
ity  of  soul  with  which  it  is  got  and  held.  That 
doctrine  terminates  in  one  of  two  sorts  of  heathen 
ism, —  in  intellectual  idolatry,  or  else  in  scientific 
materialism.  Where  genius  is  rare,  and  scholars 
are  few,  there  will  grow  up  an  admiring  worship 
of  colossal  mental  attainments.  In  a  period  of 
educational  facilities,  and  the  popularizing  of  let 
ters,  as  with  us,  an  exaggerated  estimate  and  self- 
conceit  of  crude  information  will  mistake  knowledge 
for  wisdom,  accomplishments  for  virtue,  till  finally, 
the  loftiest,  the  heroic,  the  spiritual  objects  of 
man  are  forgotten,  in  a  sottish  accumulation  of 
private  mental  property,  and  the  heart's  holy  loy 
alty  is  sacrificed  to  the  arrogant  aggressions  of  the 
understanding.  Genius  is  made  a  gorgeous  glutton, 
existing  only  for  its  own  beatitude,  and  gloating 
over  its  epicurean  mess.  Knowledge  would  then  be 
adorable  for  its  divinity  though  all  the  heart-beats 
of  Society  were  silenced,  or  though  the  beauty  of 
the  morning  bloomed  and  brightened  across  a  faith 
less  world. 


TO      THE      INTELLECT.  107 

Nevertheless,  as  was  said,  our  Creator  clearly 
sets  honor  and  value  on  the  intellect  in  its  own 
place,- — a  place  high  but  not  the  highest,  His  de 
signs  contemplate  its  complete  discipline  and  ma 
turity.  He  would  have  every  seed  he  has  planted 
in  humanity  grow;  every  energy  he  has  lodged  in 
his  children  expand ;  —  the  understanding  not  less 
than  the  rest. 

Our  second  position  will  be,  that,  if  the  Creator 
thus  honors  intellectual  activity  and  strength,  then 
to  show  that  man's  social  nature  is  a  regular  and 
efficient  agent  for  nourishing,  educating,  and  enlarg 
ing  the  intellect,  will  be  only  to  detect  another 
evidence  of  the  Almighty  Presence  and  Design  in 
the  creation.  This  is  what  is  now  before  us. 
Over  against  the  perverted  sentiment,  just  re 
ferred  to — infidel  in  philosophy  and  idolatrous  in 
practice — I  set  the  conviction  that  the  knowledge, 
or  mental  action,  which  does  not  tend  to  some 
fruitful  service  to  men  is  out  of  harmony  with 
Providence.  Till  we  learn  the  methods,  and  are 
inspired  with  the  passion,  to  reinforce  and  expe 
dite  our  fellows,  we  are  not  truly  educated,  nor 
wise.  Our  minds  are  not  working  lawfully,  accord 
ing  to  their  true  intention.  Education,  in  the  hu 
man  sense,  never  contemplates  an  isolated  speci 
men.  Its  purpose  is  not  to  rear,  here  and  there, 


198  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

an  intellectual  Peak  of  Teneriffe,  nor  to  build  a 
feudal  castle  of  selfish  learning  in  a  desert.  It 
groups,  assimilates,  fraternizes  men.  It  achieves 
its  end  only  when  it  has  reared  well-furnished., 
friendly  laborers  for  the  common  weal. 

Philosophy  and  fact  alike  justify  us  in  pro 
nouncing  a  law  of  reciprocal  relation  between  the 
social  element  in  man  and  his  intellectual  energy. 
I  am  aware  of  the  liability  to  exaggeration  of 
facts  on  the  one  hand,  and  fanciful  trains  of  sug 
gestion  on  the  other,  in  tracing  particular  illustra 
tions  of  this  law.  I  do  not  pretend  that  it  acts 
with  uniform  certainty  or  directness.  I  allow  in 
advance  for  mixtures  and  exceptions.  There  is 
considerable  difficulty  in  disentangling  and  tracing 
out  the  threads  of  an  actual,  secret  connection, 
where  a  careless  glance  would  see  only  a  jumble 
of  fortuitous  coincidence.  But  this  much,  I  think, 
can  be  demonstrated  :  Society  acts  on  thought,  as 
well  as  thought  on  Society.  Society  challenges 
genius,  animates  the  understanding,  fertilizes  the 
faculty  of  invention,  fashions  the  scholar.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  disciplined  and  balanced  mind, 
when  it  accepts  its  noblest  commission,  and  moves 
to  its  divinely  appointed  office,  becomes  the  helper 
and  renovater  of  the  race. 

Before    advancing   a   step,   we   must    disabuse    our- 


TO     THE      INTELLECT!  199 

selves  of  a  pedantic  fallacy  ;  the  notion  that  all 
intellectual  force  is  confined  to  those  special  f<jfms 
of  expression  which  literature  has  exclusively  ap 
propriated,  viz.,  Books  and  the  Fine  Arts.  These 
are  convenient,  impressive,  powerful  forms  of  men 
tal  action.  But  they  by  no  means  exhaust  the 
mind's  resources,  nor  embody  all  its  operations. 
The  world  is  stirred  and  carried  forward  by  intel 
lectual  energies  playing  around  it,  which  never 
found  their  way  into  libraries  or  galleries.  Litera 
ture  itself,  properly  speaking,  is  but  a  voice,  not 
an  idea,  nor  is  it  the  only  voice  ideas  utter. 
Ideas  speak  in  institutions,  in  enterprises,  in  colo 
nies,  in  local  improvements,  in  governments,  in  com 
merce,  in  farms,  in  mechanism,  in  manners,  in 
ceremonies  and  rituals  of  worship,  in  household 
furniture  and  habits,  no  less  than  in  treatises  and 
poems.  Writing  and  the  arts  are  but  signs  and 
exponents  of  that  inner  world  of  the  mind,  of 
which  these  other  facts  are  signs  and  exponents 
just  as  much,  and  quite  as  weighty.  For  example, 
commerce  is  regarded,  primarily,  as  an  institution 
of  self-interest  ;  but  the  thinking  merchant  is  a 
student  also,  and  has  other  books  than  those  on 
the  shelves  of  his  book-case.  His  calculations,  his 
combinations,  his  sweeping  surveys  of  countries, 
ports,  harvests,  financial  causes  and  currents,  have 


200  SOCIETY     IN     DELATION 

to  move  under  the  captaincy  of  the  brain.  What 
are  those  colossal  structures,  that  architecture  rears 
at  his  bidding  along  your  thoroughfares,  but  solid 
treatises  upon  forethought  and  enterprise  ?  What 
are  those  palatial  vessels  that  glide  new  every 
week  from  our  ship-yards,  and  go  out  to  battle 
with  elements  fiercer  than  any  veteran  battalions, 
but  thick-ribbed  creations  of  the  mind,  swimming 
thoughts  with  rudders  and  sails,  chapters  of  po 
litical  economy  written  in  iron  and  oak,  speeches 
spoken  round  the  globe  to  the  oceans  and  conti 
nents,  volumes  launched  and  gone  to  sea,  the  cir 
culating  library  of  the  climates  ?  A  deed  is  no 
less  an  intellectual  birth — the  product  of  thought — 
than  a  word.  The  brain  goes  into  an  heroic  act 
as  well  as  into  an  oration  or  a  sonnet.  Indeed, 
when  the  times  grow  earnest  or  revolutionary,  and 
ideas  stir  most  bravely,  the  mere  litterateur  drops 
out  of  concern.  Busy  hands  and  expanding  emo 
tions  vote  him  an  impertinence,  and  push  him 
into  a  corner,  to  wait  for  a  softer  air,  when  the 
rugged  emergency  is  over.  No  disparagement  to 
Letters  and  Libraries ;  they  are  the  text-books  of 
the  generations  ;  they  make  mental  treasures  per 
manent  ;  they  hold  fast  what  is  got ;  they  correct 
tradition  ;  and  sooner  or  later  the  world's  best 
thought  is  reflected  in  that  record.  Only  remem- 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  201 

her,  intellectual  activity  and  production  begin  before 
literature,  and  achieve  immense  conquests  and  bene 
factions  outside  of  it. 

As  soon  as  Society  begins  to  be,  it  begins  to 
solicit  and  tax  the  human  brain.  Every  new  so 
cial  want  is  a  new  spur  to  contrivance,  to  thought, 
to  intellectual  exertion.  Civilization  has  to  be  built, 
— slowly,  and  expensively ;  and  the  social  and  intel 
lectual  forces  are  the  contractors,  in  partnership. 
The  savage  must  get  out  of  his  cave,  under  a  roof, 
and  the  intellect  must  be  a  carpenter  and  build 
the  roof  for  him.  As  his  social  condition  rises,  it 
must  go  on  building,  hut,  and  tent,  and  house, 
and  mansion,  and  palace,  and  assembly-room,  and 
custom  house,  and  hall  of  legislation,  and  temple,— 
each  in  its  turn  and  place.  As  primitive  man  lays 
off  the  apron  of  fig-leaves,  the  girdle  of  bark,  the 
untanned  hide  of  the  beast,  the  intellect  must  turn 
tailor  and  adjust  the  fabric,  and  fashion  the  cos 
tume,  of  his  dress.  To  substitute  utensils  for  the 
fingers  in  eating,  or  steel  hatchets  for  a  stone  in 
cutting,  is  an  intellectual  proceeding.  So  through 
out.  Civilization  is  a  perpetual  provocative  to  men 
tal  skill.  Society  is  an  unceasing  beggar  at  the 
gates  of  Wisdom.  It  turns  the  key  of  hnowledge. 
It  tugs  and  labors  at  the  lid  of  Nature's  chest. 
It  clamors  for  all  light.  It  uncovers  all  secrets; 


202  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

protests  against  all  monopolies  ;  and  forbids  Na 
ture's  children  to  boast,  "I  know  something  that 
you  do  not."  The  doctrine  of  intellectual  reserve, 
as  Fontenelle's  maxim  had  it,  that  "  if  a  wise 
man  has  his  hand  full  of  truths,  he  will  open 
only  his  little  finger,"  Society  indignantly  repudi 
ates.  Not  only  will  it  insist  on  having  all  that 
science  and  scholarship  know  published  and  dif 
fused,  but  it  goads  the  man  of  science  and  the 
scholar  to  know  more  for  its  sake. 

To  appreciate  this  mental  stimulus  from  social 
wants,  we  have  only  to  look  round  first  upon  the 
furnishing  and  the  walls  of  our  own  dwellings. 
Here  are  the  results  of  mechanical  industry,  guid 
ed  in  every  manufacture  by  intellectual  faculty. 
Here  are  fabrics  that  comfort  the  body,  save 
and  measure  time,  light  the  rooms  at  nightfall, 
set  the  windows  that  let  the  sunrise  beckon  to  us 
in  the  morning,  pour  the  pond  that  mirrors  the 
mountains  into  our  chambers,  dig  and  forge  the 
metals  that  form  the  implements  and  the  coin  and 
the  plate  that  social  necessity  uses,  bring  the  coal 
mine  and  the  forest  to  soften  the  winter,  spread 
carpets  under  our  feet,  or  hang  the  pictured  scen 
ery  of  countries  we  never  saw  before  our  eyes. 

Or  else,  for  a  more  vivid  and  magnificent  illustra 
tion  yet,  enter  one  of  our  annual  exhibition-rooms 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  203 

of  industry  and  invention, — a  County  Fair,  or  the 
Crystal  Palace  of  a  continent.  Every  such  collec 
tion  of  workmen  and  their  works  is  a  social  jubi 
lee  of  mental  victory.  It  is  Society  celebrating 
the  Brain's  Independence.  The  whole  scene  is  a 
vital  institute  of  intellectual  instruction.  It  is  an 
educator.  It  is  an  argument.  It  is  an  encyclopae 
dia.  It  is  a  poem.  It  is  a  manual  of  learning. 
It  is  one  of  the  people's  quick-witted,  extempo 
rized  universities.  It  is  a  school  of  design.  It 
puts  new  illumination  into  old  task-work;  it  raises 
the  tone  of  life;  it  brightens  the  observer's  senses. 
It  reaches  back  its  quickening  touch  into  all  the 
work-shops  and  factories  of  the  land,  and  rouses 
the  mind  there.  It  helps  finish  and  edify  Society. 
For  still  the  laborer  is  greater  than  the  labor ; 
the  engineer  is  superior  to  the  engine ;  the  opera 
tive  is  of  more  significance  than  the  loom  ;  the 
woman  is  finer  than  her  embroidery.  There  are 
the  trophies  of  peaceful  battles,  which  the  mind, 
like  a  loyal  general,  having  wrestled  with  the  ob 
stinacy  of  nature,  brings  home  to  its  commonwealth 
and  sovereign,  Society. 

There  too  you  see  how  the  increasing  social  de 
mand  brings  in  the  inventiveness  of  the  mind  to 
make  up  for  the  lacking  capacity  of  the  body. 
Cotton  cloth  was  once  manufactured  by  hand,  prin- 


204  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

cipally  in  the  East  Indies.  But  the  widened  So 
ciety  of  the  earth  grew  impatient  ;  two  or  three 
strong  heads  were  persuaded  to  take  the  matter 
into  their  thought,  and  to-day  a  single  loom-tender 
in  Lowell  can  spin  as  much  cotton  in  an  hour  as 
three  thousand  Hindoos  together.  There  is  a  pyra 
mid  in  Egypt  which  it  took  one  hundred  thousand 
men  twenty  years  to  build.  The  machinery  now 
running  in  England  would  lift  all  those  materials 
to  their  place  in  the  structure,  in  eighteen  hours. 
When  Boulton,  the  engineer,  went  up  to  the  pal 
ace,  and  came  into  the  presence  of  George  III.,  to 
explain  to  the  royal  dulness  how  that  machinery 
might  be  set  going,  and  the  contemptuous  king 
said  to  him,  as  he  might  to  a  common  peddler, 
"  Well,  sir,  what  have  you  got  to  sell  ?"  Boulton 
stood  up,  and  said,  "  What  kings,  sire,  are  all 
fond  of — power."  His  intellect  had  responded  to  a 
social  want,  and  it  made  his  head  kinglier  than 
the  one  that  wore  the  crown. 

One  of  the  characteristics  of  modern  industry  is 
the  division  and  subdivision  of  labor.  It  is  an  in 
evitable  incident  to  the  advancement  of  civilized 
Society.*  At  first  sight,  it  might  seem  to  narrow 
the  range  of  the  laborer's  thoughts,  and  so  to  be 
unfavorable  to  the  growth  of  the  mind.  Practi- 
*  See  Plato's  "Republic,"  Book  ii.,  Chapter  ii. 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  205 

cally,  however,  it  is  found  that  this  distribution  in 
the  departments  of  work  is  attended  with  increased 
mental  aptitude  and  activity.  It  is  because  thor 
oughness  and  concentration  are  stronger  intellectual 
attributes  than  versatility,  or  breadth  of  surface. 
The  probability  is  that  the  man  who  should  under 
take  to  plan,  frame,  finish,  and  furnish  his  own 
house, — to  be  architect,  mason,  carpenter,  blacksmith, 
painter,  glazier,  locksmith,  plumber,  upholsterer,  in 
one, — would  really  have  a  less  accurate  and  forci 
ble  mind  than  he  who  should  master  only  one  of 
those  trades,  and  would  have  a  much  less  com 
fortable  house  besides.  Take  up  the  Directory  of 
a  large  city,  and  turn  to  the  list  of  employments. 
See  how  many  hands  it  takes  to  achieve  the  work 
once  performed  by  one.  Then  see  how  much  more 
completely,  rapidly,  cheaply,  each  part  is  done  ; 
how  the  division  condenses  attention,  perfects  exe 
cution,  promotes  discoveries  in  each  line,  and 
widens  the  range  of  competition.  Then  compute 
how  many  of  these  multiplied  avocations  have  to 
do,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  your  own  daily  en 
joyment  ;  and  it  will  become  only  plainer  and 
plainer  that  the  whole  social  body  has  a  vital  in 
terest  in  the  activity  of  thought. 

Thus    the    progress    of   invention    goes    on, — intel 
lectual    energy    accumulating,    and     reaching    out    on 


206  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

every  side,  stimulated  by  the  progress  of  Society. 
But,  presently,  there  springs  up  a  popular  alarm. 
The  instinct  of  self-preservation  and  self-interest  ap 
prehends  a  danger.  Will  not  the  contrivances  and 
mechanisms  which  are  said  to  save  labor,  diminish 
also  the  wages  of  labor  ?  Will  not  the  machine 
that  does  the  work  of  a  hundred  pairs  of  hands, 
supersede  the  hands,  leave  them  idle,  and  the 
mouths  they  used  to  feed  starving  ?  A  very  per 
tinent  social  question  :  for  if  the  apprehension  is 
reasonable,  it  militates  against  our  position,  show 
ing  the  intellect  rather  the  enemy  of  Society  than 
its  friend. 

The  cases  of  this  apparent  conflict  of  intellec 
tual  and  social  laws  are  abundant.  I  can  myself 
recall  the  amusing  scene — indeed  it  was  scarcely 
a  dozen  years  ago — when  in  one  of  the  most 
intelligent  agricultural  districts  of  New  England, 
the  neighbors  of  the  venturous  farmer  who  first 
bought  a  horse-rake  refused  to  be  convinced  by 
the  plainest  proofs  of  its  economy,  but  looked 
askance  at  it  over  the  fence  as  an  impertinent 
piece  of  agricultural  heresy.  They  saw  with  their 
eyes  that  three  loads  of  hay  went  into  the 
barn  in  the  same  time  that  it  took  to  gather 
one  with  the  old  rakes,  yet  prejudice  was 
stronger  than  sight,  and  the  pupil  of  the  eye 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  207 

was  a  pupil  that  would  not  go  to  school.  The 
old  spirit  is  by  no  means  dead,  which  has  perse 
cuted  the  prophets,  and  ridiculed  the  thinkers,  and 
starved  the  innovators  ;  which,  in  the  old  world, 
has  often  collected  a  rabble  to  mob  a  new  discov 
ery  that  came  to  Society  with  healing  on  its  wings  ; 
which  forbade  Watt  to  open  his  instrument  shop  in 
Glasgow ;  which  sneered  at  "  Fulton's  folly,"  as  the 
first  steamboat  was  nicknamed  in  Brown's  ship 
yard,  at  New  York  ;  which  actually  broke  the 
heart  of  poor  William  Lee,  in  the  time  of  James 
I.,  driving  him  by  English  indifference  to  France, 
and  then  by  French  bigotry  from  Rouen  to  Paris, 
where  he  died  in  misery,  because  the  world  would 
not  let  its  stockings  be  made  by  his  stocking- 
machine  ;  which,  in  South  America,  according  to 
Huinboldt,  instigated  the  citizens  to  petition  the 
government  against  the  building  of  a  road  among 
the  Andes,  lest  it  should  damage  the  interests  of 
the  carriers  who  had  enjoyed  the  monopoly  of  car 
rying  travellers  across  the  mountains  in  baskets 
strapped  on  their  backs ;  which  inflamed  the  Swiss 
peasants,  when  they  saw  Rupp  constructing  the 
superb  slide  of  Alpnach  for  bringing  down  the 
pine  timber  of  Mount  Pilatus  into  Lake  Lucerne, 
to  accuse  his  trigonometry  of  being  the  instigation 
of  Satan  ;  which,  only  forty  years  ago,  threw 


208  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

brickbats  at  a  collier  in  Philadelphia  who  brought 
down  nine  wagon  loads  of  mountain  coal  to  sell, 
hooting  after  him  as  an  impostor  that  pretended  to 
sell  stones  for  fuel  ;  which  trembled,  all  the  way 
from  Boston  to  Albany,  when  the  Western  railroad 
was  about  to  be  laid,  with  the  ludicrous  fear  that 
horses  would  go  out  of  fashion,  and  have  to  be 
shot  down  in  their  shoes  as  a  drug  ;  which  drove 
Hargreaves  and  his  spinning-machine  out  of  Lan 
cashire  for  his  life,  and  prompted  Laurence  Earn- 
shaw  to  break  up  his  own  machine  in  a  fit  of 
benevolent  apprehension  lest  he  should  take  bread 
out  of  his  neighbors'  mouths,  although  a  bold  im 
provement  on  both  their  designs  by  Arkwright 
afterwards  gave  wages  and  food  to  millions  of 
workmen,  raised  the  commerce  in  cotton  from  two 
million  pounds  a  year  to  a  thousand  millions  of 
pounds,  and  poured  wealth  into  the  treasury  of  the 
nation  and  the  world. 

That  timid  temper  is  not  exterminated  yet.  And 
therefore  it  is  right  to  assert  that  the  social  wel 
fare,  and  God's  plans  for  it,  really  justify  all  man 
ner  of  intellectual  originality;  to  demonstrate  the 
absolute  social  justice  of  the  industrial  and  intellec 
tual  laws.  It  is  capable  of  demonstration,  that  the 
multiplying  of  labor-saving  machinery  never  dimin 
ishes  the  means  of  living;  in  fact,  that  labor  is 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  209 

not  finally  saved,  but  multiplies  itself,  by  and  in 
the  machine.  The  final  cause  of  labor-saving  con 
trivances  is  to  increase  labor.  This  is  the  eternal 
paradox  of  the  world's  growing  civilization.  The 
several  industries  of  mankind  move  forward  under 
one  harmonious  plan.  Every  legitimate  development 
or  production  in  one  favors  the  others.  I  know  of 
nothing  in  the  whole  history  of  men  more  beauti 
ful  or  more  majestic  than  the  certainty  of  this  rule. 
The  illustrations  of  it  are  the  annals  of  all  the  arts. 
Apart  from  its  own  fascinating  interest,  it  is  one  of 
the  most  splendid  proofs  of  the  Being  and  Providence 
of  God.  The  family  of  men  are  under  one  Father. 
It  is  as  sure  as  gravitation,  that  every  fresh  mech 
anism  he  puts  into  the  world  through  an  ingenious 
intellect,  he  takes  up  and  makes  a  part  of  his  un 
impeachable  Goodness  toward  our  race.  Its  incon 
veniences  are  local  and  temporary ;  its  beneficence 
is  cosmopolitan  and  permanent.  It  enriches,  em 
ploys,  establishes,  equalizes.  It  creates  demands 
only  to  satisfy  them;  it  saves  expenditure  only  to 
scatter  it  with  a  wider  sweep.  A  few  copyists  are 
at  first  set  adrift  by  the  printing-press ;  but  what 
an  army  of  operatives  that  mighty  engine  nourishes 
to-day  ! — a  stupendous  philanthropist  of  employment, 
if  that  were  its  only  function.  The  sewing-machine 

may  bring  a  brief  embarrassment   to    the   poor  seam- 

14 


210  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

stress  ;  let  thoughtful  Charity  consider  it,  and 
soften  the  transition;  but  in  the  end  she  also 
will  be  the  stronger  and  better  for  it  if  she  only 
keeps  her  own  mind  up  with  the  times.  If  she 
sits  sullenly  down  and  complains,  or  persists  in 
making  her  fingers  competitors  of  wheels  and 
spindles,  she  will  be  crushed.  There  is  less 
stitching  to  be  done,  that  her  faculties  may  be 
liberated  for  larger  enterprises,  and  her  hands  find 
a  more  exalted  ministry.  It  is  futile  to  be  jeal 
ous  of  the  necessities  of  progress.  We  must  all 
go  where  the  Almighty  points,  and  not  ask  to 
have  the  orbs  of  celestial  light  stand  still  for  our 
private  accommodation.  We  must  be  hospitable  and 
brave  in  our  welcome  of  the  new  Future,  as  well 
as  thankful  venerators  of  the  old  Past. 

By  such  a  course  of  reflection  as  this,  that  very 
fact  which  we  have  seen  cited  as  an  objection  to 
our  doctrine  becomes,  instead,  an  argument  for  it. 
That  feeling,  that  prejudice,  which  opposes  the  gen 
erous  and  progressive  application  of  science  to  the 
arts  and  conveniences  of  human  life  is  found  to  be, 
not  the  friend  but  the  foe  of  Society,  not  a  social 
but  a  selfish  instinct.  Private  monopoly,  class  in 
terests,  sectional  privilege,  may  well  be  jealous  of 
intellectual  light  and  power;  but  when  we  rise  to 
consider  the  whole  family  of  man,  and  look  abroad 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  211 

on  the  wide  wants  of  the  world,  we  find  the  ex 
act  terms  of  our  proposition  reechoed  everywhere. 
Society  is  the  providential  nutriment,  motive,  thea 
tre  and  rewarder  of  the  intellect,  hardly  less  than 
of  the  heart. 

Furthermore,  it  is  because  man  in  his  social  na 
ture  is  actuated  so  largely  by  his  heart,  and  be 
cause  it  is  a  principle  of  our  nature  that  the  heart 
warms  and  quickens  the  head,  that  this  action  of 
Society  on  the  intellect  takes  place.  It  was  a 
maxim  of  the  great  historian  of  the  church,  Nean- 
der,  that  even  of  a  theologian  the  heart  is  the 
determining  agent :  Pectus  theolognm  fecit.  Doubt 
less  it  would  have  been  better  for  the  church 
if  this  natural  and  beautiful  intention  had  not 
met  so  many  obstacles  from  dogmatism  and  am 
bition.  But  I  believe  there  is  no  considerable 
field  of  human  life  where  we  cannot  gather  testi 
mony  that  both  the  acquisitive  and  the  creative 
faculties  are  set  free  and  quickened  through  the 
affections.  And,  for  obvious  reasons,  the  most  fa 
miliar  instances  will  be  the  most  effectual  for  our 
purpose. 

Take  common  conversation.  We  do  not  duly 
consider  the  amount  of  real  intellectual  activity 
and  originality  that  are  constantly  brought  into 
play  through  talk,  dialogue,  rejoinder,  repartee, — 


212  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

in  households,  on  the  street,  in  the  encounters  of 
company.  Probably  more  good  things  are  said 
every  day,  and  vanish  into  air,  than  can  be 
found  printed  in  any  library  in  the  world.  Now 
observe  that  this  animation  and  brilliancy  of  con 
versation  are  apt  to  be  very  much  in  proportion 
as  the  social  intercourse  is  free,  untrammeled,  sim 
ple  and  cordial;  very  much  as  the  feelings  and 
affections  have  an  unobstructed  and  unembarrassed 
play;  very  much,  in  other  words,  as  Society  is 
most  social.  Conventionalism,  fashion,  ceremony,  the 
stiff  drawing-room  parades  where  people  march  out 
like  walking  lay-figures,  or  clothes-horses  only  as 
frames  to  exhibit  dress,  or  to  perform  grimace  and 
mutual  make-believe  hospitality,  —  these  yield  no 
bright  talk.  They  benumb  the  intellectual  faculty, 
or  drive  it  out  of  the  house.  Even  eloquent  per 
sons  grow  tedious,  and  the  nimblest  parts  are 
dumb.  "  Good  society  have  I  seen,"  said  Goethe, 
— "  good  society  they  call  it,  though  there  is  not 
in  it  the  material  for  the  smallest  of  poems."  But 
on  the  other  hand,  where  the  company  have  the 
most  mutual  confidence,  the  most  mutual  affinity, 
the  most  love, — which  are  the  specific  elements  of 
the  social  nature,  —  there  thought  will  strike  out 
its  images  of  boldest  character,  and  conversation 
will  weave  its  finest  charm. 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  213 

Why  is  it,  in  respect  of  personal  social  success, 
that  with  one  man,  or  one  woman,  all  your  powers 
of  expression  are  locked  up,  as  in  frost,  the  mo 
ment  you  approach  ?  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
communication ;  every  topic  is  barren ;  every  sen 
tence  comes  "  wrong  end  first ;"  the  air  between 
you  seems  to  be  a  non-conductor;  the  interview  is 
desperately  dull;  while  with  another,  all  is  lucid, 
suggestive,  and  fruitful ;  the  very  same  topics  are 
radiant;  your  phrases  come  from  you  with  un 
wonted  point  and  finish,  and  your  own  fluency 
surprises  you.  Why  is  this,  except  that  the  emo 
tional  and  sympathetic  part  of  our  nature,  that  on 
which  social  life  depends,  is  rich  in  one  ca>se,  and 
in  the  other  poor  ?  Where  there  is  nothing  in 
common  between  people,  there  can  be  nothing  com 
municated.  Where  there  is  no  oil  of  friendly  joy 
to  anoint  the  metallic  and  rusty  hinges  of  the 
mind,  every  movement  will  creak,  and  stick,  and 
jar. 

Popular  oratory  exhibits  the  same  thing.  It  is 
the  assembly  that  animates  the  speaker,  and 
whether  he  writes  for  them,  or  thinks  into  speech 
before  them,  stimulates  his  invention.  Very  often 
it  is  the  audience  that  makes  the  oration :  the 
brilliant  and  responsive  throng  that  kindles  the  fire 
of  the  speech.  The  parliament,  the  forum,  the 


214  SOCIETY      IN     RELATION 

hustings,  are  not  only  educators,  but  electric  bat 
teries.  Even  that  resonant,  reverberating  eloquence 
of  Demosthenes  himself,  which 

"  Wielded  at  will  that  fierce  democracy, 
Shook  th'  arsenal,  and  fulmined  over  Greece, 
To  Macedon,  and  Artaxerxes'  throne," 

would  not  have  sounded  down  the  centuries,  but 
for  the  social  passions  of  the  tribunal  and  agora 
of  Athens.  So  of  the  whole  inspired  line  of  ora 
tors  that  he  heads.  Eloquence  is  a  social  product. 
Undoubtedly  we  must  try  these  principles  by 
that  which  has  come  to  be  known  in  the  world 
as  literary  history.  We  must  ask  if  the  intellec 
tual  princes  and  giants  have  owed  anything  to  So 
ciety.  Many  people  do  not  admit  anybody  to 
belong  to  the  kingdom  of  the  intellect,  except 
technical  authors  and  artists.  The  argument  will 
bear  the  strain  put  upon  it  even  by  that  theory. 
Doubtless  there  are  exceptional  instances,  of  men 
whose  natures  were  so  solitary,  or  their  brain  so 
dominant  and  overbearing,  that  their  greatness  would 
appear  with  little  social  excitement.  Yet,  even 
these,  if  you  trace  causes  closely  enough,  will  be 
found  indebted  to  the  currents  of  human  sympathy. 
Mr.  De  Quincey  divides  intellects  into  two  classes, 
— laborers  of  the  mine  and  laborers  of  the  mint. 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  215 

The  one  class  dig  truth  up,  or  discover  it  ;  the 
other  strike,  cast,  mould  it  into  coin  for  current 
use.  Both  are  amenable  to  the  state  of  Society 
they  live  in,  and  are  partly  the  creatures  of  its 
past  action.  The  powers  of  the  greatest  men  are 
heightened  by  their  acting  on  people  about  them. 
They  see  their  gifts  reflected  in  the  popular  en 
thusiasm.  They  hear  the  acclaim  of  the  popular 
voice.  They  feel  the  responsive  thrill  of  the  pub 
lic  pulse.  This  reduplication  of  individual  energy 
by  social  sympathy  is  one  of  the  first  laws  of  in 
tellectual  life.  Every  mind  gains  force  by  seeing 
the  fruits  of  its  force.  Science,  for  the  quickness, 
decision,  and  systematic  arrangement  of  its  teachers, 
stands  under  patent  obligations  to  the  mutual  atti 
tude  of  pupil  and  professor,  reader  and  author, 
hearer  and  speaker.  In  the  strong  metaphor  of 
that  competent  authority,  Nicbuhr,  they  that  are 
taught  become  to  him  that  teaches  his  wings, — and 
not  only  his  wings  but  his  feet,  and  his  hands, 
and  his  eyes.  I  am  happy  to  cite  to  the  same 
conclusion  the  opinion  of  a  writer  who  has  reflected 
so  carefully  and  comprehensively  on  the  subject  of 
civilization  as  M.  Guizot.  "  If  a  man  makes  a 
mental  advance,"  says  he,  "  if  he  acquires  some 
new  idea,  or  some  new  faculty,  what  is  the  desire 
that  takes  possession  of  him  at  the  very  moment 


216  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

he  makes  it  ?  It  is  the  desire  to  promulgate  his 
sentiment  to  the  exterior  world — to  publish  and 
realize  his  thought.  He  feels  obliged,  impelled,  as 
it  were,  by  a  secret  interest,  to  extend,  to  cany 
out  of  himself,  the  melioration  which  has  been  ac 
complished  within  him.  To  what  but  this  do  we 
owe  the  exertions  of  great  reformers, — those  bene 
factors  of  the  human  race  who  have  changed  the 
face  of  the  world  ?" 

Then,  in  point  of  fact,  we  see  prodigious  effects 
wrought  on  both  the  views  and  the  abilities  of 
eminent  thinkers  by  the  state  of  Society  in  which 
they  lived,  or  out  of  which  they  grew.  Every 
chapter  of  literary  history,  from  Plutarch  to  the 
American  Encyclopaedia,  from  Hesiod  to  Words 
worth,  supports  this  statement.  Signal  epochs  in 
letters  have  commonly  been  inaugurated  by  some 
invigorating  revolution  in  the  elements  of  human 
life.  Sometimes  these  movements  have  been  made 
the  subjects  of  great  literary  works.  Sometimes 
they  have  only  acted  on  susceptible  organizations, 
as  by  electrical  excitement.  The  re-asserted  in 
stincts  of  liberty  and  equality  re-appear  in  sublimer 
statues  and  pictures  and  buildings,  in  wider  and 
deeper  philosophies,  in  eloquence  that  commands 
broader  auditories,  in  poetry  that  burns  with 
more  of  the  immortal  fire.  The  revolutionary  and 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  217 

the  constitutional  period  each  has  its  appropriate 
and  typical  intellectual  tone.  If  Patrick  Henry, 
then  Webster.  A  grand  history  raises  grand  his 
torians.  Given  Achilles  and  Hector,  and  sooner 
or  later  a  Homer  must  be.  Herodotus  comes  of 
Xerxes.  The  genuine  hero  will  get  his  story  told, 
his  acted  music  sung.  On  the  pages  of  Thucyd- 
ides  the  pathos  and  tragedy  of  civil  war  utter 
their  august  grief,  and  the  speeches  of  warrior- 
statesmen  find  a  fit  setting  in  the  stately  narra 
tive.  The  vast  tides  of  the  world's  life,  as  if  by 
a  wonderful  instinct  of  self-preservation,  cast  up 
their  own  painters  and  chroniclers.  Every  large  in 
terest  or  passion  finds  a  voice.  A  conservative 
aristocracy  does  not  lack  a  fastidious  Pindar,  and 
a  courtly  Sir  Walter  Scott,  nor  a  discontented  de 
mocracy  its  Victor  Hugo  and  Rienzi.  The  decline 
of  Athenian  manners  and  the  degeneration  of 
woman  commission  a  comedian  like  Aristophanes. 
When  an  artificial  civilization  in  Greece  or  Great 
Britain  makes  it  possible  for  a  sharp,  cold,  bril 
liant  banterer  to  be  the  great  man,  Menander  or 
Thackeray  is  there.  Stern  and  calculating  Rome 
will  have  no  comedy  at  all  ;  for  it  has  neither 
laughter  nor  leisure ;  the  grim  fights  of  gladiators 
are  its  unsmiling  sport,  and  its  nearest  approach 
to  mirth  is  the  sardonic  savageness  of  satire.  But, 


218  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

nevertheless,,  the  greatness  of  all  Roman  writing  is 
the  ever  present  idea  of  Rome,  a  Society  of  men. 
The  Augustan  age  there,  and  the  Elizabethan  in 
England,  were  times  of  the  growth  of  social  em 
pires.  Men's  minds  heaved  unconsciously  with  the 
pulsations  of  youthful  commonwealths.  Periods  of 
ardent  patriotism  are  almost  always  intellectual  har 
vests.  A  social  energy  is  at  work  which  liberal 
izes  and  expands.  It  opens  the  self-occupied  un 
derstanding  with  ideas  of  a  political  Brotherhood, 
and  common  sufferings  and  hopes.  In  one  country, 
and  that  not  the  one  feeling  the  primary  shock, 
we  see  the  French  Revolution  rousing  such  a  sena 
torial  order  as  Herder  and  Goethe,  Klopstock, 
Kant,  Schiller  and  Ilumboldt. 

We  speak  much  of  the  benefits  brought  to  the 
human  intellect  by  the  invention  of  Printing.  It 
flashed  in  a  wave  of  light  on  the  race,  which 
spreads  forever,  and  brightens  as  it  spreads.  A 
careful  study  of  European  history,  however,  during 
the  period  immediately  preceding  that  great  epoch, 
shows  that  even  that  vast  engine  would  have  been 
powerless  but  for  the  mighty  preparations  of 
change  that  had  been  slowly  working  in  the  bosom 
of  European  society.  The  struggle  between  indi 
vidual  ambition  and  the  overgrown  estates  of  the 
feudal  aristocracy  had  not  been  in  vain.  The 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  219 

lower  classes  began  to  be  lifted.  The  sense  of 
personal  liberty  had  awaked.  Mercantile  wealth  was 
increased.  Independence  came  with  it.  Trading 
towrns  became  the  seats  of  liberal  ideas,  and  raised 
a  barrier  of  free  competition  against  hereditary 
privilege.  And  so,  when  Printing  came,  it  found  a 
new  order  of  Society  ready  to  receive  it.  Doubt 
less  this  new  order  had  more  to  do  than  was  ap 
parent  with  the  invention  itself.  At  any  rate,  it 
was  the  arm  of  strength  that  sent  its  benefits 
abroad,  and  gave  its  impulse  to  the  continent. 

Could  we  only  look  far  enough  down  into  the 
underlying  causes  of  things,  and  read  the  world's 
story  with  these  in  view,  we  should  see  how  hu 
man  wants  are  thus  the  begetters  of  intellectual 
power.  Before  a  great  man  appears,  there  are 
hidden  causes,  working  in  the  bosom  of  God's  so 
cial  family,  that  require  him.  He  never  comes 
till  he  is  wanted,  though  the  world,  stoning  its 
prophets  still,  often  misinterprets  its  hunger,  and 
knows  not  what  it  wants.  Every  splendid  discov 
ery  is  wrung  out  of  reluctant,  inexhaustible  na 
ture  at  the  cry  of  a  mortal  desire.  Not  more  cer 
tainly  is  the  planet  built  for  man,  than  every  new 
intellectual  birth  in  it  is  a  straight  answer  to  his 
solicitation.  The  religion  of  Judea  and  the  Norse 
manhood, — Love  and  Strength,  or  Heart  and  Will,— 


220  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

met  and  married  on  the  old  Roman  hearth-stone,  to 
generate  a  new  line  of  ideas  no  less  than  of  per 
sons.  Copernicus  came  to  find  the  physical  centre, 
just  when  the  dawning  truths  of  science  began 
to  require  that  the  axle-point  of  the  heliocentric 
system  should  be  fixed.  The  age  of  Raphael 
opened  just  when  the  rough  lineaments  of  western 
civilization  supplicated,  inarticulately,  the  refining 
graces  of  Christian  art.  Columbus  was  but  the 
finger  of  one  crowded  continent  feeling  after  room 
and  rights  in  another, — after  an  industrial  America 
to  atone  for  military  Europe,  a  missing  hemisphere 
to  finish  the  globe.  Lord  Bacon  was  the  answer 
of  tired  scholasticism  begging  to  get  out  of  the 
labryrinth  into  a  simple  path.  A  hurrying  century 
felt  hindered  in  its  restless  emigration  and  enter 
prise,  and  Fulton  came  up  to  help  it  along.  Busy 
and  related,  yet  widely  divided  communities,  ached 
for  instant  communication,  and  Franklin  found,  and 
Morse  equipped  the  nimble  medium  that  should  set 
them  talking  face  to  face.  Luther  was  a'  pioneer 
pushed  on  by  the  impatient  hopes  of  stifled  mill 
ions,  —  a  wrestler  with  the  hierarchy,  borne  for 
ward  by  the  consecrating  prayers  of  an  army  of 
"  reformers  before  the  Reformation." 

Then,    in   all   those    emanations    of    thought   where 
the   emotions   play,   the   efficiency   of  humane    causes 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  221 

is  only  the  more  palpable  and  characteristic.  Mas 
ters  of  poetry,  romance,  arts  of  design,  have  been 
the  spokesmen  of  social  experience.  In  their  mo 
ments  of  free  insight,  liberated  from  the  dullness  of 
gross  outsides,  and  from  the  caprices  of  fashion, 
they  have  gone  down  into  the  abiding  deeps  within, 
and  spoken  out  of  them.  That  is  to  be  a  genius. 
In  that  sense,  all  the  eternal  voices  are  de  profundis. 
Orators  are  only  the  pleaders  of  passions  and  con 
victions,  with  passions  and  convictions  just  like  them 
selves.  Musical  composers  sing  the  sorrow  and  joy 
of  the  children  of  men.  Tragedy  is  but  the  wail 
of  some  spiritual  pain.  The  soul's  long  warfare  with 
conventional  restraints,  with  foes  of  circumstance, 
with  the  tyranny  of  custom,  with  the  baffling  of 
love  or  aspiration, — with  some  slow  Iliad  of  calami 
ties,  or  grim  Inferno  of  conscience,  —  this  is  the 
ever-living  and  ever-commanding  theme  of  all  in 
spiring  speech. 

Indeed,  we  may  treat  the  whole  world  of  let 
ters  as  a  drama  in  itself.  The  unity,  the  postures, 
the  dialogue,  the  progress  from  a  Chaldean  exor 
dium  to  a  divine  conclusion,  all  are  there,  or  will 
be.  What  we  call  history  is  but  the  marginal  an 
notation, — the  explanatory  argument.  Treatises,  ora 
tions,  sermons,  volumes,  are  the  talk  of  the  length 
ened  colloquy.  The  drama  is  the  most  perfect 


222  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

form  of  writing,  precisely  because  it  is  closest  to 
the  actual  and  social  life  of  men.  In  ^Eschylus 
and  Shakspeare  the  agents  of  power  are  not  the 
transient  interests  or  qualities  of  class,  rank  or 
age,  but  the  royal  emotions  and  passions  of  es 
sential  humanity.  In  the  characters,  situations,  suf 
ferings,  it  is  not  princes,  nor  generals,  nor  demi 
gods,  that  arrest  our  breath,  but  men  and  women 
like  ourselves.  If  kings,  lords,  queens,  dukes,  car 
dinals  come  before  us,  it  is  still  as  men  and  wo 
men  that  they  come,  and  concern  us.  Regality, 
titles,  sceptres,  are  only  the  means  of  operating  the 
human  nature  which  they  accidentally  attend.  The 
emperor  himself  is  but  the  "  usher  that  doth  go 
before"  that  more  imperial  presence,  the  soul.  Hence 
these  confidantes  of  nature  tell  us  more  than  we 
knew  about  our  own  economy, — tell  us  "  the  secrets 
of  our  own  bosoms." 

Turn  now  to  the  other  side  of  this  mutual 
inter-action  between  Learning  and  Life,  or  Ideas  and 
Society.  The  proposition  is  that  thinking  and 
studying  men  do  not  fulfil  their  final  and  pre 
destined  office,  till  they  reach  the  vital  springs  of 
action,  and  create  an  ampler  and  freer  style  of  be 
ing, — till  they  ennoble  Society,  elevate  its  estate, 
purify  its  relationships,  and  dignify  its  manners. 
Kings,  like  Alfred  sitting  out  his  eight  nightly 


TO     THE     INTELLECT.  223 

hours,  after  harassing  days,  for  classical  study,  to 
rouse  some  ambition  in  his  stupid  people,  when 
not  a  priest  south  of  the  Thames  could  translate 
the  Latin  prayers  he  repeated  in  public, — priests 
like  Archbishop  Bruno  of  Cologne,  studying  new 
languages  for  the  enlightening  of  his  flocks, — these 
are  patterns  of  the  disinterested  scholar,  —  true 
kings  and  priests,  not  reigning  in  the  etiquette  of 
courts  or  the  ceremonial  of  a  hierarchy,  but  in 
the  grand  commonwealth  of  man,  in  the  living 
church  of  God.  The  educated,  scholarly,  brotherly 
man  is  the  ordained  hierophant  and  crowned  law 
giver  of  the  race. 

The  course  of  literary  progress  from  the  first 
has  been  towards  a  heartier  recognition  of  the 
worth  and  needs  of  the  common  people.  In  this, 
the  advance  of  thought  has  followed  the  Christian 
gospel, — preached  first  to  the  people.  This  tend 
ency  must  have  free,  open  way.  Then,  as  has 
been  somewhere  said,  in  the  beautiful  unfolding 
and  circuit  of  the  perfect  plan,  Literature,  which 
began  by  bringing  mistaken  deities  to  earth,  com 
pleting  its  celestial  mission,  returns  and  lifts  an 
instructed  Society  to  heaven.  Wisdom  is  always 
bending  to  ignorance,  not  in  patronage  but  in  re 
spect,  and  beckoning  it  upward.  As  the  poet 
prays,  "  Bodies  bright,  and  greater,  serve  the  less 


224  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

not  bright/'  which  is  but  a  paraphrase  of  the 
apostolic  charity ;  "  Ye  that  are  strong  ought  to 
bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak."  We  read  the 
destiny  of  our  multiplied  appliances  of  culture  in 
the  best  instincts  of  the  acquiring  mind.  And 
whether,  with  the  elder  generations,  we  interpret 
that  destiny  in  the  light  of  a  golden  age,  lying, 
like  an  island  of  the  blest,  before  us,  or,  with 
Plato,  "  resolve  the  soul's  purest  thoughts  into  re 
membrances  of  a  brighter  life,  already  passed  in  a 
nobler  society,"  we  find  the  predicted  issue  to  be 
the  same, — a  kingdom  of  heaven  on  the  earth. 

Knowledge,  to  become  wisdom,  needs  to  let  the 
heart  beat  in  its  breast, — to  be  what  humanity 
asks  of  it, — not  a  sallow  monk  dreaming  in  a 
clammy  cave,  not  a  selfish  sybarite  gloating  over 
its  dish  of  delicious  reputation,  not  a  paramour 
dallying  with  the  passions,  not  a  respectable  servant- 
in-waiting  keeping  the  door  of  pompous  patrons, 
not  a  mystic  dervish  gazing  complacently  on  itself, 
but  the  breathing,  sympathizing,  and  whole-souled 
benefactor  of  the  people. 

There  is  a  glorious  possibility,  which  has  some 
times  haunted  the  dreams  of  thinkers,  at  whose 
grandeur  all  common  hopes  of  scholars  kneel  with 
veneration.  It  is  the  unity  of  all  sciences,  arts, 
labors,  letters,  under  one  all-embracing  and  connect- 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  225 

ing  principle,  or  law.  If  that  majestic  idea  shall 
ever  be  realized,  what  shall  be  the  one  unifying 
truth  ?  What  girdle  shall  be  elastic  enough  to  en 
circle  all  knowledge  ?  What  principle  shall  be  vast 
enough  to  contain  all  systems,  schools,  discoveries, 
conclusions,  clasping  with  its  starry  belt  all  the 
constellations  of  human  thought  ?  I  answer,  it  is 
no  other,  it  can  be  no  other,  than  the  Brotherhood 
of  social  men,  beneath  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

Here,  then,  is  our  conclusion :  the  world's  think 
ers  and  students  are  its  natural  menders  and  mov 
ers,  because  they  are  the  quickeners  and  guides  of 
its  actors.  New  greatness  awaits  the  human  mind, 
as  it  shall  more  and  more  practically  confess  this 
truth  and  become  the  willing  servant  of  the  wants 
and  welfare  of  Society.  Take  Philosophy.  Is  it 
not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  her  soul  should 
expand, — for  she,  too,  has  a  soul, — when  she  turns 
her  discoveries  into  treasures  of  mercy,  and  then 
scatters  them  by  the  waysides  of  common  men, 
and  at  the  doors  of  the  poor,  dispelling  supersti 
tion,  cheapening  comforts,  easing  drudgery,  making 
herself  the  « Guide  of  Life  ?"  The  Arts  :  can  they 
help  springing  into  more  vigorous  and  graceful  ac 
tivity,  when  they  feel  themselves  to  be  like  minis 
tering  spirits,  public  pleaders  for  faith  and  love, — 
beckoning,  with  their  elevating  forms  of  beauty,  to 

15 


226  SOCIETY     IN     RELATION 

the  children  of  ignorance  and  crime,  and  calling 
them  up  to  visions  of  refinement,  purity  and  truth  ? 
Poetry  must  ever  gain  most  complete  control  of 
men's  hearts  when  it  sings  the  tragic  Miserere 
over  bruised  and  baffled  affections,  or  strikes  the 
note  of  Exultemus  and  Gloria  in  excehis  at  the 
righteous  emancipation  of  the  oppressed.  Even  the 
mastery  of  old  languages  becomes  a  more  living 
and  engaging  thing,  when  we  hearken  to  these 
tongues  of  departed  tribes,  as  to  solemn,  musical 
monitors  how  the  everlasting  policy  and  true  honor 
of  nations  are  not  war  but  peace,  not  aggression 
but  service,  not  oppression  but  freedom.  Then  they 
are  not  dead  languages  but  alive  again.  Under  a 
scholarship  broad  and  bountiful  as  this,  publishing 
glad  tidings  like  the  beautiful  feet  of  Morning 
upon  the  mountains,  the  real  golden  age,  at  once 
classic  and  Christian,  should  be  inaugurated  by  a 
Pentecost  of  Thought,  Labor,  and  Love. 

Before  these  kindling  prospects  of  enlightening 
and  redeeming  Society,  —  which  ever  appeals  and 
entreats  for  this  intellectual  ministry,  —  how  do  all 
other  motives  to  mental  toil  sink  down  !  The 
finest  gold  is  dim.  Ambition's  most  resplendent 
crown  is  cheap,  and  the  sound  of  Fame's  silver 
trumpet  dies  away.  Educated  men  are  invited  to 
unprecedented  honor,  the  honor  of  creating  a  So- 


TO     THE      INTELLECT.  227 

ciety  where  education  shall  be  universal.  Re 
nouncing  selfish  emulation,  forgetting  the  rivalries  of 
schools  and  the  bigotries  of  sects,  they  enter  into 
a  fraternity  of  hope  and  faith,  "  Brethren  of  the 
Misericordia"  to  all  the  ignorance  and  shame  that 
still  fringe  our  civilization,  apostles  of  a  new  or 
der,  builders  of  a  society  for  the  Son  of  God. 
With  such  consecrations  of  the  human  mind,  there 
is  no  destiny,  dreamed  or  prophesied,  too  auspi 
cious  for  the  race.  Learning  would  become  the 
preceptor  of  industry,  the  crown  of  enterprise,  the 
dignity  of  commerce,  the  ornament  of  the  repub 
lic.  Art,  handmaid  of  refinement,  —  Science,  inter 
preter  of  nature,  —  Literature,  the  voice  of  expe 
rience,  —  and  Philosophy,  the  guide  of  life,  would 
combine  their  constructive  offices  for  rearing  the  open 
university,  home,  temple  of  the  children  of  men. 
And  in  building  that  tabernacle,  Thought  and  Love, 
—Intellect  and  Faith,  our  prophet  and  our  priest, — 
should  do  all  things  for  Society  after  the  pattern 
shown  them  in  the  mount, — the  mount  of  the  vis 
ion,  and  adoration,  of  the  Wisdom,  and  the  Power, 
and  the  Goodness  of  God. 


LECTURE    VII. 

SOCIETY    SUBJECT    TO   A    LAW   OF   ADVANCEMENT. 

EVERYTHING  indicates  that  the  Creator  has  placed 
his  human  family  on  the  globe  for  their  education 
into  a  destiny  which  no  member  of  that  family  is 
able  to  conceive.  "  Man,"  says  Michelet,  "  is  a  pil 
grim  by  nature ;  it  is  long  since  he  set  out,  and 
I  know  not  when  he  will  arrive."  Of  this  edu 
cation,  all  the  voices,  the  instruments,  and  the 
forces,  must  be  found  in  three  regions  ;  within 
man  himself,  in  the  creation  around  him,  or  in  the 
spiritual  world  above  him.  These  three  exhaust 
every  possible  resource  for  him :  Humanity,  Nature, 
Heaven. 

The  first  of  these,  including  the  powers  that 
reside  within  man  himself,  we  must  divide  into 
two  parts, — of  those  which  pertain  to  man  as  an 
individual,  and  those  that  belong  to  him  as 
social,  or  by  virtue  of  the  connection  of  one  life 
with  another.  Where  all  these  educating  agents 
should  have  cooperated,  in  unbroken  harmony,  there 
man  would  be,  in  the  accommodated  and  human 
sense  of  the  term,  perfect.  For  an  expression  of 


230  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

that  possibility,  sufficiently  guarded  and  yet  suffi 
ciently  positive,  we  may  borrow  the  language  of 
Robert  Southey :  "  I  am  fully  convinced  that  a 
gradual  improvement  is  going  on  in  the  world,  has 
been  going  on  from  its  commencement,  and  will 
continue  till  the  human  race  shall  attain  all  the 
perfection  of  which  it  is  capable  in  this  mortal 
state.  This  belief  is  a  corollary  deduced  from  the 
whole  history  of  mankind." 

And  since  that  complete  condition,  or  indeed  any 
tolerable  approach  to  it,  would  unquestionably  be  a 
society,  we  are  right  in  seeking  what  those  social 
capabilities  and  operations  are,  which  point  to  such 
a  state,  and  tend  towards  it.  We  shall  find  that 
all  the  other  forces  which  help  and  advance  man, 
—in  God,  in  nature,  or  in  himself, — presuppose  him 
to  be  a  social  creature,  and  act  upon  him  as 
such.  We  shall  find,  further,  that  wherever  his 
social  conditions  and  faculties  are  most  generously 
unfolded,  there  he  rises  steadily  towards  the  best 
accomplishment  of  his  being.  These  two  proposi 
tions  signify  what  I  mean  by  the  statement  that 
Society  holds  in  it  the  laws  of  its  own  progres 
sion.  In  the  last-  Lecture,  we  saw  Socialism,  in  all 
its  forms,  trying  to  hasten  this  movement  by  arti 
ficial  arrangements,  but  blundering  and  failing. 
Nevertheless,  the  movement  proceeds. 


A      LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT.  231 

Two  facts,  respecting  the  much  abused  subject 
of  human  progress,  must  be  frankly  conceded  at 
once.  The  progress  is  not  as  yet  universal,  as  to 
the  world's  surface,  nor  uniform,  as  to  its  own  rate 
of  speed. 

It  is  not  universal,  as  to  space.  Probably  there 
is  as  thorough  degradation,  attended  with  all  the 
crimes,  sottishness  and  stupidity  of  the  savage 
state,  on  our  globe  to-day,  as  at  any  moment 
since  Adam.  In  some  dreary  districts,  it  is  plain 
enough,  the  course  is  steadily  downward,  and  a 
higher  civilization  sinks  to  a  lower.  Glance  at 
some  of  the  great  features  and  epochs  of  domes 
tic  existence.  There  are  places,  to-day — as  among 
the  Rajpoots  in  India — where  infant  children,  just 
tasting  of  the  life  God  gave  to  be  a  blessing  and 
a  joy,  are  miserably  slaughtered  to  dismiss  them 
from  a  more  miserable  lot.  Sometimes,  by  the 
most  horrible  of  maternal  profanities,  the  poor 
mother  spreads  poison  on  her  breast,  and  the  babe 
drinks  death  "  where  nature  had  planted  the 
streams  of  life."  There  are  places,  to-day — as 
among  the  Pawnees — where  womanhood  is  reckoned 
a  disgrace,  and  where  she  who  receives,  by  her 
nature,  most  of  the  divine  spirit  into  hex  heart, 
is  the  abject,  beaten,  and  incredibly  burdened  slave 
of  her  pagan  tyrant,  man.  In  Australia,  to-day, 


232  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

when  a  lover  selects  the  maiden  he  would  marry, 
this  is  the  method  of  his  courtship.  He  watches 
till  he  finds  her  in  some  solitary  place,  rushes  at 
her  unexpectedly,  strikes  her  to  the  ground  with  a 
club  or  wooden  sword,  beats  her  over  the  head 
till  she  is  senseless,  drags  her  to  his  quarters, 
and,  with  these  impressive  proofs  of  affection,  pro 
poses  ;  and,  what  is  equally  remarkable,  is  com 
monly  accepted !  The  course  of  wedded  love  is 
said  to  be  much  in  keeping  with  the  gallantry  of 
these  advances.  The  Papuans  of  New  Guinea  sell 
their  own  children  into  slavery.  The  demonstra 
tions  of  hospitality  and  of  emotion  are  ludi 
crously  inverted.  When  some  of  the  New  Zea- 
landers  meet  their  relations, — after  a  separation, — 
they  face  each  other,  join  their  noses,  and  in  that 
position  sob  and  howl  half  an  hour.  If  there  is 
a  large  group  of  connections  to  one  new-comer,  all 
but  the  nearest  relative  lay  hold  of  the  hands, 
shoulders  and  feet,  leaving  to  the  "  chief  mourner" 
in  the  solemnities  the  delicate  monopoly  of  the 
nose,  the  rest  keeping  time,  in  a  chorus  of  whim 
per,  groan  and  yell,  with  him.  There  are  places, 
too,  where,  when  the  last  act  comes,  which  is  sol 
emn  everywhere,  the  naked,  crouching  corpse  is 
bound  with  thongs  of  bark,  crushed  into  a  hole  in 
the  ground,  thinly  covered,  and  forsaken.  I  need 


A     LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT.  233 

not  multiply  examples  of  the  savagery  that  lingers 
yet  in  the  world.  Does  it  invalidate  our  position, 
that  Society  is  naturally  progressive  ?  If  it  could 
be  known  that  in  those  regions,  what  we  have 
proclaimed  as  the  social  principles,  were  kept,  it 
wyould  unquestionably  invalidate  it.  But  since  it  is 
in  those  places  that  these  principles  have  been 
persistently  and  grossly  broken,  the  degradation, 
and  even  the  deterioration,  only  illustrates  our  doc 
trine,  and  confirms  it.  Man  has  become  unnatural. 
It  ought  to  be  further  remarked  here  that  our 
doctrine  by  no  means  involves  the  supposition  that 
the  course  of  mankind  has  been  progressive  from 
the  beginning.  On  the  contrary,  though  the  point 
is  ably  disputed,  the  facts  seem  rather  to  instruct 
us  that  the  race  has  suffered  a  vast  degeneracy 
from  a  primeval  social  state  of  comparative  purity. 
The  most  comprehensive  students  of  this  subject, 
those  that  include  the  teachings  of  Scripture  among 
their  data,  agree  in  the  opinion  forcibly  stated  by 
Chalmers  and  others,  that  civilization  never  arose 
spontaneously  from  a  state  of  barbarism,  but  was 
olways  imported,  or  created  by  contact  with  a  peo 
ple  in  whom  the  influence  of  an  enlightened  relig 
ion,  or  early  revelation,  had  not  been  lost.  "  Sav 
age  man  is  a  degenerated  animal."  God  did  not 
form  man  a  savage.  "  There  was  an  aboriginal  civ- 


234  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

ilization,    coeval    with     the     true    knowledge    of    the 
true   God." 

The  other  fact  I  allude  to  is  that  the  progress 
of  the  different  branches  of  civilization  is  not  uni 
form,  though  it  is  progress  on  the  whole.  Their 
growth  is  not  simultaneous ;  nor  do  they  expand 
by  any  law  of  definite  proportions,  like  the 
branches  of  a  tree,  where,  if  one  twig  is  length 
ened  a  foot,  a  smaller  twig  is  sure  to  be  length 
ened  by  a  fixed  fraction  of  a  foot.  Energy  and 
taste,  invention  and  veneration,  machinery  and 
poetry,  do  not  advance  with  equal  step,  nor,  in 
any  particular  period,  is  it  possible  to  detect  any 
established  ratio  between  their  several  rates.  For 
example,  in  the  era  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  will 
.was  developed ;  everything  else  bent  to  the  iron 
discipline  of  a  military  force.  It  was  the  age  of 
armies.  The  Greek  mind  labored  after  the  perfect 
in  form.  That  was  an  age  of  ideality.  For  a  long 
time  after  the  recognition  of  Christianity  by  the 
civil  power,  from  the  fourth  century  forward,  the 
active  mind  of  Europe  was  compacting  a  splendid 
system  of  church  unity,  binding  a  network  of  ec 
clesiastical  dependencies,  under  a  comprehensive 
Christian  hierarchy.  For  several  centuries  preced 
ing  and  including  the  thirteenth,  the  chief  business 
of  the  foremost  nations  seems  to  have  been  to 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  235 

bring  out  and  cultivate,  often  in  rude  shapes,  a 
certain  order  of  high  sentiments,  such  as  loyalty, 
honor,  class  fidelity,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  charity. 
This  was  the  age,  therefore,  of  the  crusades, 
chivalry  and  religious  houses.  The  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  were  memorable  for  the  resist 
ance  of  the  human  mind  to  overgrown  authority, 
and  the  emancipation  of  the  individual  from  arbi 
trary  despotisms  in  the  state  and  the  church. 
This,  accordingly,  was  the  age  of  Protestantism, 
Puritanism,  and  the  settlement  of  New  England. 
Afterwards,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Thought  was 
busy  pushing  its  new  ideas  out  into  various  prac 
tical  consequences,  as  well  as  into  extreme  specu 
lations.  And  so  it  became  an  age  at  once  of  po 
litical  revolutions  and  of  philosophical  scepticism. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  an  unwarrantable  presumption 
to  venture  on  a  general  designation  of  what  the 
special  office  of  our  own  age  is.  To  take  a  broad 
view  of  its  characteristics,  we  need  to  stand  less 
than  is  now  quite  possible  under  the  confusing  in 
fluence  of  those  passing  interests  which  may  be 
transient  in  the  eyes  of  Omniscience,  or  even 
of  posterity,  while  they  look  colossal  in  their  rela 
tion  to  our  limited  faculties.  The  errand  of  our 
time  appears  to  be,  to  push  out  into  more  exten 
sive  applications  the  tendencies  of  the  two  cen- 


236  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

turies  immediately  preceding, — especially  into  the 
two  directions  of  political  reform,  and  the  practical 
machinery  of  life,  under  a  diffused  education. 
Probably  in  a  future  not  very  distant,  and  possi 
bly  through  unprecedented  conflicts,  a  more  settled 
order  of  society,  on  a  new  basis,  with  institutions 
incorporating  the  new  ideas,  the  secrets  extorted 
by  all  these  struggles,  may  appear, — the  ancient 
stability  enclosing  the  results  of  the  modern  agita 
tion, — the  kingdom  that  was  to  come.  These  sev 
eral  ages  that  I  have  thus  referred  to  are  not 
distinctly  marked  off,  with  an  exact  beginning  and 
end,  in  their  events  and  spirit  and  character,  as 
they  are  in  tables  of  chronology.*  One  period  is 
shaded  into  another,  and  the  work  of  each  laps 
over  upon  those  adjacent. 

In  the  divine  plan,  each  epoch  has  its  task,— 
sometimes  an  original  one,  sometimes  merely  to 
further,  or  to  correct,  one  that  has  gone  before. 
We  learn  that  the  progress  of  the  species  is  not 
the  simple  motion  of  a  single  body,  passing  straight 
forward,  faster  or  slower,  like  a  ball  over  a  plane 

*  "There  is  no  epoch  in  which  one  idea  rules  alone,  to  such  an 
extent  that  no  other  idea  might  seem  to  exist." 

See  COUSIN,  in  his  "History  of  Modern  Philosophy,"  Lecture 
VII.,  second  series,  where  he  refers  to  his  great  Division  of  His 
tory  into  the  three  epochs — the  epoch  of  the  Finite,  of  the  Infi 
nite,  and  of  the  Relation  of  the  Two. 


A      LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT.  237 

surface,  or  a  car  on  rails ;  but  it  is  a  motion  com 
pound,  broken,  scattered.  We  must  compare  it,  not 
to  an  organized  army  drawn  up  in  ranks,  with 
the  drilled  precision  of  officered  regiments  and  brig 
ades,  with  vanguard,  main  body,  rear  guard  arid 
wings,  and  marching  on  towards  a  definite  station; 
but  rather  to  a  loose  company  of  adventuring  emi 
grants,  exploring  an  unknown  country,  feeling  their 
way  into  a  wilderness,  —  made  up  of  different 
bodies, — with  light  scouts  to  reconnoitre,  but  often 
obliged  to  turn  back, — with  slow  escort  and  heavy 
teams  to  bring  on  the  baggage,  some  repelled  by 
the  obstinacy  of  nature  from  positions  they  have 
occupied  to  take  more  circuitous  routes,  others 
waiting  at  advanced  posts  for  the  remainder  to 
come  up,  but  all  animated  by  one  common  purpose 
urging  them,  at  whatever  hazards  and  through 
whatever  difficulties,  as  the  law  of  their  life,  to 
press  on.  Says  the  author  of  "  Friends  in  Council," 
"  The  progress  of  mankind  is  like  the  incoming  of 
the  tide,  which,  for  any  given  moment,  is  almost 
as  much  of  a  retreat  as  of  an  advance ;  but  still 
the  tide  moves  on." 

Of  this  Progress  there  are  certain  prominent  in 
struments,  or  agents,  contained  in  the  very  struc 
ture  of  Society,  and  parts  of  its  vital  system. 
Some  of  these  have  been  sufficiently  exhibited  al- 


238  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

ready.  At  this  point,  however,  others  come  into 
view,  and  must  be  mentioned. 

One  of  these  is  the  perpetual  system  of  variety 
of  personal  abilities  that  nature  keeps  up  in  the 
social  world.  Always  there  are  some  stronger  to 
help  the  infirmities  of  the  weak;  always  there  are 
weak  to  be  quickened  and  forwarded  by  the 
strong.  There  are  wise  and  ignorant;  there  are 
needy  and  abounding;  there  are  ugly  and  beauti 
ful;  there  are  impulsive  and  calculating,  phlegmatic 
and  mercurial,  practical  and  imaginative,  logical  and 
intuitive,  taciturn  and  talkative.  Always,  by  the 
benign  and  beautiful  balancings  of  the  Father's  will, 
the  old  and  the  young,  full  strength  and  little 
children,  grey  locks  and  the  soft  hair  of  infancy, 
are  on  the  earth  together.  The  more  we  explore 
what  is  continually  wrought  and  evoked,  of  human 
power  and  goodness  and  wisdom,  by  these  diversi 
fied  and  unequal  relations,  the  more  we  shall  see 
that  they  form  one  of  the  prolific  generators  of  an 
advancing  spirit  in  the  race. 

Secondly,  there  is  the  characteristic  of  heredi 
tary  transmission.  What  one  generation  gains  it  can 
hand  over,  in  large  part,  to  its  successors,  in  knowl 
edge,  aptitude,  skill.  How  broadly  distinguished,  in 
this  regard,  is  man  from  any  of  the  inferior  ani 
mals  !  We  saw  that  there  is  no  society  among 


A      LAW      OF      ADVANCEMENT.  230 

them.  They  transmit  nothing.  With  each  individ 
ual  specimen,  all  that  he  did  perishes.  Even  if 
some  slight  material  structure  of  his  building-instinct 
survives,  the  nidus  of  the  offspring  has  to  be  fab 
ricated  anew.  "  There  are  no  birds  in  last  year's 
nest."  The  instincts  are  resupplied  to  every  indi 
vidual  of  his  kind, — no  more,  no  less.  13 at  hu 
manity  holds  by  a  longer  title.  Much  as  man 
takes  with  him  to  the  grave,  he  leaves  much  be 
hind.  In  the  matured  records  and  accumulations  of 
his  skill,  in  the  raised  and  quickened  capacity  of 
his  nature,  in  physiological,  intellectual,  moral  traits, 
there  is  a  solemn,  a  fearful,  a  precious  hereditary 
law.  And  the  more  it  comes  to  be  recognized  and 
revered,  the  more  rapidly  will  mankind  move  and 
mature. 

"  Be  assured,"  says  Ruskin,  "  that  all  the  best 
treasures  of  this  world  are  not  to  be  produced  by 
each  generation  for  itself;  but  we  are  all  intended, 
not  to  cover  our  work  in  snow  that  will  melt,  but 
each  and  all  of  us  to  be  rolling  a  great  gathering 
snow-ball,  higher  and  higher  along  the  Alps  of  hu 
man  power.  Thus  the  science  of  nations  is  to  be 
accumulative,  from  father  to  son ;  each  learning  a 
little  more  and  a  little  more ;  each  receiving  all 
that  was  known  and  adding  its  own  gain.  The 
history  and  poetry  of  nations  are  to  be  accumula- 


240  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

tive,  —  each  generation  treasuring  the  history  and 
the  songs  of  its  ancestors,  and  adding  its  own  his 
tory  and  its  own  songs.  And  the  art  of  nations 
is  to  be  accumulative,  just  as  science  and  history 
are, — the  work  of  living  men  not  superseding  but 
building  itself  upon  the  work  of  the  Past.  For 
the  intention  of  Providence  concerning  that  art  is 
evidently  that  it  should  all  grow  together  in  one 
mighty  temple,  —  the  rough  stones  and  the  smooth 
all  finding  their  place,  and  rising,  day  by  day,  in 
richer  and  higher  pinnacles  to  heaven." 

Another  of  the  inwrought  signs  and  means  of 
progression  in  the  social  nature  is  the  obvious  tend 
ency  of  communities  to  store  up  and  preserve  what 
they  have  gained,  in  institutions ;  institutions  of  learn 
ing,  of  traffic,  of  defence,  of  manufacture,  of  govern 
ment,  of  charity,  of  worship.  They  make  institu 
tions  for  the  intellect,  institutions  for  the  passions, 
institutions  for  the  interests,  institutions  for  the 
brain,  the  heart  and  the  hand.  They  are  al 
ways  funding  their  stock.  Society  has  a  mani 
fest  genius  for  organization.  When  it  gets  a 
good  thing  it  puts  it  into  a  shape  where  it  will 
keep,  and  be  reproduced.  These  institutions,  whether 
educational,  industrial,  moral  or  religious,  have  a 
wonderful  working  and  creative  energy.  They  re 
duplicate  human  strength.  Hence  it  is  that  most 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  241 

men  like  to  work  in  and  with  institutions.  They 
feel  that  they  borrow,  and  expend,  and  are  hacked 
up  by,  a  great  invested  ability  beyond  their  own ; 
and  that  their  own  is  vastly  multiplied  by  the  ma 
chine  it  goes  into.  Hence  the  man  whose  foresight 
or  benevolence  founds  a  durable  institution  becomes 
the  greatest  of  benefactors.  It  goes  on,  in  some 
measure,  of  itself.  Next  after  personal  character  it 
is  the  most  efficient  of  all  agencies  on  earth ;  and 
very  often  it  acts  over  a  wider  surface  than  per 
sonal  character  can,  and  makes  that  also  more 
fruitful.  I  place,  therefore,  among  the  inherent 
proofs  of  its  natural  progressiveness,  this  disposi 
tion  of  Society  to  embody  and  perpetuate  its  ac 
quisitions  in  instituted  forms. 

Put  with  this,  however,  a  law  equally  clear,  and 
potent,  and  progressive.  Society  not  only  puts  on 
institutions  when  it  wants  them;  it  puts  them  off 
when  it  has  done  with  them, — when  they  are  only 
crusts,  dried  shells,  enclosing  no  life,  or  manacles 
and  fetters,  cramping  and  distorting  the  life  they 
cannot  contain.  In  some  of  its  temporary  stages, 
the  functions  of  Society,  says  Herbert  Spencer,  are 
fulfilled  "  by  appliances  destined  to  disappear  as 
fast  as  the  ultimate  appliances  become  efficient. 
Associated  humanity  has  larval  appendages,  analo 
gous  to  those  of  individual  creatures.  As  in  the 

16 


242  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

common  Triton  of  the  ponds  the  external  lungs 
dwindle  away  when  the  internal  lungs  have  grown 
to  maturity ;  and  as,  during  the  embryo  state  of 
the  higher  vertebrata,  temporary  organs  appear,  serve 
their  purpose  awhile,  and  then  are  reahsorbed,  leav 
ing  only  signs  of  their  having  been,  —  so,  in  the 
earlier  forms  of  the  body  politic,  do  there  exist  in 
stitutions,  which,  after  answering  their  ends  for  a 
time,  are  superseded  and  become  extinct."  The 
new  spirit  pushes  off  the  old  form. 

Another  proof  is  the  propensity  to  traffic,  —  a 
constant  stimulus  to  invention,  to  skill,  to  enter 
prise,  to  adventure.  Doubtless  the  commerce  in 
merchandise  is  inferior  to  the  commerce  in  ideas  ; 
yet  we  ought  to  remember  how  often  the  one  has 
been  the  carrier  and  mail-bag  of  the  other ;  how 
the  ships  of  the  merchant  have  exported  and  im 
ported  knowledge  and  refinement.  The  individual 
traders  thought  little  of  this ;  they  were  looking 
after  their  own  fortunes,  and  driving  their  own 
bargains; — all  the  more  it  shows  God's  law  above 
them,  making  them  its  unconscious  agents.  Obey 
ing  that  eager  commercial  passion,  in  oriental  an 
tiquity,  the  nations  broke  over  their  narrow  bound 
aries,  learned  each  other's  secrets,  imbibed  a  more 
catholic  spirit.  In  the  middle  ages,  the  caravans 
of  transportation  bore  intellectual  vitality  from  city 


A     LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT.  243 

to  city,  and  stirred  the  stagnant  populations.  In 
modern  times,  the  seats  of  commerce  have  been 
proverbially  the  seats  of  liberty,  and  the  sails  of 
fleets  have  been  the  wings  of  liberal  thought. 

Still  another  of  these  agents  is  travel.  By  vir 
tue  of  his  social  constitution  man  is  a  travelling 
animal,  —  and,  in  turn,  the  more  he  travels  the 
more  Society  is  advanced.  It  is  plain  enough  why 
nature  set  man  on  his  legs,  and  lent  to  head  and 
heart,  stomach  and  spine,  a  locomotive  energy.  And 
yet  it  has  come  about,  in  the  tremendous  outward 
aggressive  pressure  of  his  itinerant  habits,  that  his 
legs  are  now  the  least  part  of  his  locomotive  ap 
paratus.  He  makes  all  the  elements  of  earth  and 
air  and  water  move,  pull,  push,  swing,  float,  gal 
lop,  propel  him.  People  make  roads,  ferries,  ships ; 
and  then  roads,  ferries,  ships,  make  the  people. 
Every  time  a  rustic  countryman  goes  to  the  next 
large  town,  every  time  an  American  goes  to  Eu 
rope,  unless  there  is  an  unwonted  perverseness  in 
his  stupidity,  he  comes  back  with  a  wider  mind. 
No  wonder  the  Greeks  put  their  highways  under 
the  protection  of  their  deities, — for  though  their 
gods  did  not  succeed  much  better  as  superintend 
ents  of  streets  than  as  patterns  of  righteousness, 
it  indicated  the  popular  estimation.  When  barba 
rism  first  overran  Italy,  true  to  the  destructive 


244  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

instinct,  the  woodsmen  demolished  the  highways ; 
but  they  had  to  build  them  again.  What  if  the 
great  Egyptian  and  Roman  roads  were  first  made 
for  the  inarch  of  armies?  After  the  armies,  apos 
tles.  Mark  the  steps.  First  the  pack-horse  and  the 
mule ;  then  the  two-wheeled  sledge,  dray,  waggon, 
which,  clumsy  as  it  was,  was  estimated  to  multi 
ply  power  on  the  whole,  in  a  tenfold  ratio.  The 
first  iron  road  for  steam  carriages  was  not  opened 
in  England  till  thirty  years  ago,  and  in  France 
but  five  years  earlier.  You  see  already  what  a 
civilizer  it  is.  Motion  is  freedom,  and  science,  and 
wealth,  and  brotherly  love.  The  engine  and  rail 
are  more  effectual  anti-slavery  lectures  than  the 
most  eloquent  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society's  agents. 
They  call  out  great  men,  and  make  small  men 
greater.  Up  in  the  woods  of  northern  New  York 
is  a  young  boy  whose  brain  is  full  of  possible 
mathematics.  It  would  all  perish  in  him,  but 
the  railroad  lays  hold  of  him,  draws  him  to  Yale 
or  Harvard,  and  he  carries  forward  the  computa 
tions  of  Bowditch  and  La  Place.  Not  by  direct 
intention,  but  secretly  in  the  plans  of  Providence, 
every  spade  that  the  laborer,  at  the  bidding  of  so 
cial  need,  strikes  into  the  bank  to  level  it  for  the 
engineer,  every  trowel  that  masonry  plies  on  the 
culvert  and  bridge,  every  hammer  that  welds  the 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  245 

machinery  of  the  locomotive,  every  bolt  that  rivets 
the  ship-timber,  bears  its  part  in  the  carving  and 
the  architecture  of  a  better  Future.  Over  these 
iron  paths  God  will  roll  in  upon  us  an  age  of 
greater  toleration,  helpfulness,  love  ;  and,  by  the 
simplest  mechanism  that  art  is  perfecting,  new  dis 
ciples  and  prophets,  faithful  as  the  old,  shall  run 
and  sail  to  give  to  Heathendom  the  heavenly  learn 
ing  of  the  cross. 

Another  of  the  natural  provisions  for  social  pro 
gress  is  language.  If  men  are  mutually  to  im 
prove  each  other's  condition,  they  must  have  a 
power  of  expression ;  if  one  generation  is  to  gar 
ner  up  its  information,  and  bequeath  its  experience 
to  posterity,  it  must  have  the  power  of  giving  its 
ideas  not  only  a  permanent  but  a  communicable 
form.  Speech  and  writing  are  these  powers.  They 
bespeak  an  intention  that  ideas  should  be  conveyed 
from  man  to  man,  from  community  to  community, 
from  age  to  age.  Thus  wisdom  is  both  portable 
and  accumulated.  What  is  newly  acquired  is  added 
to  an  old  and  imperishable  stock.  Men  die,  but 
their  thoughts,  their  learning,  will  survive.  The 
whole  race  is  quickened,  and  quickened  ever  freshly 
and  progressively,  by  the  communicative  brain  and 
heart  of  the  surrounding  and  foregoing  humanity. 
The  very  existence  of  speech  and  writing  thus  be- 


246  SOCIETY      SUBJECT     TO 

comes  a  demonstration  of  a  progressive  tendency  in 
Society.  Furthermore,  there  is  a  constant  advance 
in  language  itself,  as  to  its  simplicity,  compass, 
exactness,  and  especially  its  uniformity.  As  civil 
ization  advances,  the  number  of  dialects  decreases, 
provincialisms  are  merged,  and  the  same  tongue  be 
comes  common  to  all.  Humboldt  points  out  the 
great  diversity  of  dialects  among  American  savages. 
Sixty  different  vocabularies  were  found  in  Brazil 
alone.  In  Australia,  there  is  no  classifying  the 
complexities.  Among  the  cannibal  population  of 
Borneo,  an  island  only  eight  hundred  miles  long, 
there  are  said  to  be  hundreds  of  languages.  Gen 
erally,  "  the  number  of  languages  in  any  given  dis 
trict  is  in  the  inverse  proportion  of  the  intellec 
tual  culture  of  the  inhabitants."  And  this  rule  itself 
indicates  a  relation  between  the  structure  of  Society 
and  its  advance  from  a  lower  to  a  loftier  state. 

It  is  very  remarkable  with  what  significant  pro 
visions,  with  what  sacred  immunities,  the  Maker 
of  man  has  guarded  the  principle,  that  by  social 
intercommunications  man  shall  gain  his  best  further 
ance, — by  social  restriction,  isolation,  or  artificial 
protection,  he  shall  wither  away.  Marriages  of  con 
sanguinity  depress  or  deform  the  vitality  of  the  off 
spring.  Beyond  the  circle  of  kindred,  a  definite 
localized  population,  that  should  keep  on  inter- 


A      LAW      OF      ADVANCEMENT.  247 

marrying,  upon  the  same  social  grade,  under  the 
same  general  influences,  would  inevitably  deterio 
rate.  The  generations  need  to  change  the  air,  arid 
import  unfamiliar  elements.  It  is  said  that  no  pas 
toral  race,  a  class  whose  range  of  thought  is 
usually  limited,  has  ever  adopted  a  new  mode  of 
life,  uninfluenced  by  external  alliances.*  To  the 
want  of  renovation  from  without  the  best  ethnolo 
gists  attribute  the  barbarism  that  has  prevailed  so 
obstinately  in  Africa,  in  the  South  Sea  Islands,  in 
southern  Asia.  Everybody  knows  how  the  jealousy 
of  foreign  nations,  as  iu  China  and  Japan,  has  aggra 
vated  the  stupidity,  arrested  development,  stunted 
the  national  mind.  To  make  the  illustration  more 
pertinent,  the  men  of  that  portion  of  the  Chinese 
people  which  is  unquestionably  the  superior — the 
Mantchews — received  their  impulse  from  the  ene 
mies  they  had  subdued.  On  the  opposite  side  ol 
the  planet,  the  aboriginal  Indians  of  this  continent 
roamed  at  will,  to  be  sure,  through  the  forests; 
but  "  as  it  were  by  one  universal  magic  spell  of 
enchantment,  they  kept  rigidly  and  strictly  to  their 
respective  tribes," — oceans  hemmed  them  in, — no 
people  of  higher  civilization  came  in  contact  with 
them,  nor,  when  such  a  people  came  at  last,  would 
they  adopt  its  manners, — and  "  by  such  isolation 
*  W.  C.  Taylor's  "Natural  History  of  Society,"  i.  197. 


248  SOCIETY     SUBJECT      TO 

through  a  succession  of  ages  they  have  dwindled 
into  intellectual  pigmies,  compared  with  those  whose 
races  were  renovated  and  refreshed  by  the  grafting 
of  other  varieties." 

What  goes  with  equal  force  to  the  same  point, 
is  the  fact  that  in  those  vast  peoples  where  there 
has  most  evidently  been  a  decline  and  a  deteriora 
tion  from  a  former  civilization  into  barbarity, — like 
the  Peruvians,  like  the  Copts  of  Egypt,  like  the 
early  Greeks,  like  the  Hindoos, — there  are  almost 
always  found  traditions,  and  sometimes  relics,  of 
the  former  glory,  the  fables  of  the  inhabitants 
still  referring  that  glory  to  visits  of  the  gods, — 
some  superior,  celestial  race.  An  examination  of 
these  fables  easily  satisfies  us  that  they  generally 
point  to  colonists  from  foreign  countries,  whom  time 
and  superstition  have  apotheosized,  and  invested 
with  the  attributes  of  divinity. 

Now,  if  Mr.  Buckle's  monstrous  theory  were 
sound,  that  civilization  is  owing  entirely  to  intel 
lectual  causes,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  moral,  then 
there  ought  to  be  no  such  thing  as  a  decline  of 
civilization  known  on  the  earth.  We  know  that  the 
moral  states  of  communities  do  vary,  rising  and 
falling  at  their  freewill;  and  these  States,  which 
in  our  view  are  the  grand  determiners  of  social 
welfare,  carry  the  whole  commonwealth  up  or  down 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  249 

with   them.      But    leaving   them    out.   as    Mr.    Buckle 

o 

does,  what  is  there  to  bring  an  eclipse  over  a 
nation's  glory  ?  Nothing  short  of  some  anomalous 
catastrophe, — a  swoon  of  the  national  understanding, 
or  a  cataclysm  in  matter,  obliterating  at  once  all 
the  attainments  of  the  past.  Herculaneum  and 
Pompeii  should  be  not  only  instances,  but  should 
fix  the  rule  of  all  the  ruins  of  peoples.  What 
does,  in  fact,  actually  arrest  social  progress  is 
moral  disorder. 

If  the  spirit  of  Society  has  one  adversary  more 
unyielding  and  powerful  than  others,  it  is  the 
spirit  of  caste,  or  a  privileged  class.  Absolute  in 
dividual  isolation  is  impossible.  The  simplest  and 
commonest  wants  of  our  nature  require  a  certain 
degree  of  association.  The  selfish  principle,  there 
fore,  does  not  go  for  the  hermit's  cave,  for  the 
monk's  cell,  for  Simeon's  pillar.  It  does  what  is 
equally  selfish,  more  convenient,  and  more  cunning. 
It  seeks  a  small  and  exclusive  association,  with  a 
monopoly  of  the  good  things  of  life,  in  material 
comfort,  in  government,  in  religion;  and,  in  that 
narrow  beat  of  supercilious  manners,  finds  a  favor 
ing  theatre  for  pride,  luxury,  ambition,  or  sloth. 
This  class-distinction,  confined  to  no  form  of  politi 
cal  sway,  is  essentially  and  radically  anti-social. 
Sometimes  it  has  organized  itself,  and  become  the 


250  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

accepted  rule,  the  settled  curse  of  the  country. 
Where  that  is  the  case,  the  blight  on  human  na 
ture  is  most  frightful ;  progress  stops ;  enterprise 
is  paralyzed;  everything  stands  still  perhaps  for 
centuries.  Then  the  laws  of  social  activity  are 
overborne,  and  held  fast,  in  a  mortmain  too  heavy 
and  tight  to  let  humanity  move.  And  no  step  for 
ward  is  taken,  till,  by  some  convulsion  initiated 
from  without,  or  brought  in  from  above,  the  fatal 
system  is  broken  up. 

We    have    two    definite    and    instructive    examples 
in   the    society    of  Egypt   and    of  India. 

Nothing  historical  is  better  established  than  that 
at  a  very  ancient  period,  as  early  as  the  reign  of 
the  Pharaohs  and  the  age  of  Moses,  there  pre 
vailed  in  Egypt  a  remarkably  high  form  of  civil 
ization.  Monumental  inscriptions,  recent  explorations, 
allusions  in  the  Pentateuch,  references  in  secular 
chronicles,  all  prove  that  in  arts  and  manufactures, 
in  legislation  and  learning,  in  acquaintance  with  the 
secrets  of  nature  and  the  control  of  her  forces,  the 
Egyptians  of  that  time  occupied  the  front  rank  of 
the  world.  This  civilization  afterwards  declined 
and  was  lost.  The  nation  went  steadily  backward. 
How  did  it  happen  ?  Does  not  the  fact  contradict 
our  doctrine  of  the  law  of  social  progress  ?  On  the 
contrary,  it  signally  confirms  it.  There  grew  up  in 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  251 

Egypt  that  enormous  and  powerful  sacerdotal  caste, 
by  which  the  law  of  Society  was  systematically 
affronted.  The  priesthood,  by  craft  and  supersti 
tion,  gradually  fastened  on  the  nation  a  yoke  that 
smothered  its  life,  infinitely  more  disastrous  than 
the  slavery  under  which  the  Israelites  groaned 
when  Moses,  the  emancipator,  was  born ;  a  plague 
of  slow  effects,  but  finally  working  out  social  de 
struction.  To  keep  all  safe,  in  this  dead-lock  of 
the  intellect  and  the  will,  foreigners  were  forbidden 
to  pass  the  frontiers ;  all  channels,  by  which  new 
ideas  could  pour  in  to  shame  the  stupidity  or  to 
compete  with  the  monopoly  of  these  self-constituted 
dictators,  were  cut  off;  commerce  was  given  up  to 
the  Phoenicians,  and  after  the  days  of  Sesostris 
no  effort  was  made  to  expand  the  state.  "  In  re 
ligion,  caste  produces  a  tedious  ceremonial  and  an 
unmeaning  ritual ;  in  politics,  it  creates  a  law  fet 
tered  by  usages  and  precedents,  but  destitute  of  the 
vivifying  power  of  jurisprudence  to  accommodate  it 
to  times  and  circumstances ;  and  in  the  arts  of 
life,  though  it  may  increase  the  perfection  of  old 
processes,  it  effectually  prevents  new  discoveries. 
Every  one  that  visits  a  collection  of  Egyptian  an 
tiquities  will  be  struck  by  the  excellence  of  the 
manipulation,  and  the  poverty  of  invention  displayed 
in  the  patterns."  In  due  time,  retribution  arrived. 


252  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

Psammetichus,  seeking  assistance  abroad,  succeeded 
in  dissolving  the  priestly  caste.  But  it  was  too 
late ;  the  work  of  death  on  the  national  spirit  was 
too  far  done.  His  jealous  warriors  emigrated  by 
thousands  to  Ethiopia.  The  offended  hierocracy  for 
sook  him.  The  Babylonians,  at  Carchemish,  con 
quered  Necho,  his  son.  Neither  he,  nor  Hophra, 
his  successor,  could  reanimate  the  prostrate  soul  of 
Egypt.  When  Amasis,  a  child  of  the  people,  of 
an  inferior  caste,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his 
impatient  countrymen,  a  brief  shudder  of  returning 
enterprise  ran  through  the  emasculate  body  of  the 
state.  But  Persia  bore  down  with  her  irresisti 
ble  hosts ;  as  always  happens,  the  stronger  race 
prevailed  over  the  weaker  ;  Cambyses  drove  the 
aristocratic  corporation  from  their  temples  and  en 
trenchments  ;  "  there  was  no  room  in  the  ancient 
constitution  for  the  new  elements  ;"  "  the  boasted 
wisdom  of  the  Egyptians  became  henceforth  nothing 
more  than  a  reminiscence  and  a  name ;"  "  neither 
the  swords  of  the  mercenaries  nor  the  treasures  of 
the  people  could  uphold  the  throne  of  the  Pharaohs.* 
Turn  to  India.  The  great  majority  of  that  peo- 
ple?  —  according  to  "  Ward's  View  of  the  Hindoos" 
about  three  quarters,  —  including  all  the  laboring 
classes,  —  belong  to  the  despised  caste  of  Sudras  ; 

*  Heeren  and  Taylor. 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  253 

while  the  other  quarter  domineer  and  draw  up 
their  phylacteries.  Ages  have  not  essentially  altered 
their  degraded  condition.  Distinctions  of  personal 
character  are  sunk  in  this  flat  subjection.  Accord 
ing  to  the  Institutes  of  Menu,  and  the  accounts  of 
Sir  William  Jones  in  his  day,  if  a  member  of  this 
outcast  class  presumed  to  take  a  seat  by  the  side 
of  his  superiors,  he  was  to  be  banished  from  the 
country.  If  he  spoke  of  them  with  contempt,  his 
mouth  was  to  be  burned ;  if  he  insulted  them,  his 
tongue  was  to  be  slit;  if  he  sat  on  the  same  car 
pet  with  a  Brahmin,  he  was  to  be  maimed  for 
life ;  if  he  listened  to  the  reading  of  the  sacred 
books,  his  invasion  of  that  priestly  privilege  was  to 
be  rewarded  by  having  burning  oil  poured  into  his 
ears ;  if  he  committed  them  to  memory,  he  was  to 
be  killed;  if  he  married  his  daughter  to  a  Brah 
min,  no  earthly  vengeance  was  equal  to  the  case, 
and  he  must  be  dismissed  to  infernal  torments ; 
even  if  his  master  manumitted  him,  he  would  con 
tinue  a  slave  by  nature,  and  never  have  the  rights 
of  freedom ;  and  if  murdered  himself,  the  penalty 
would  be  only  the  same  as  for  killing  a  cow,  a 
dog,  or  a  cat. 

Such  was  the  social  structure  of  the  Hindoos. 
More  precisely  to  sustain  the  position  I  have  al 
ready  illustrated,  their  Brahmins  adroitly  forestalled 


254  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

the  liberalizing  influence  of  foreign  intercourse,  by 
denouncing  loss  of  caste  upon  any  one  of  their  order 
who  should  go  on  a  long  voyage.  And  so  the 
crippled  Indian  nation  stands,  or  crawls,  to-day,  the 
most  striking  and  solemn  monument  on  earth  of 
natural  opportunities  wasted,  early  advantages  baf 
fled,  and  a  healthy  growth  of  humanity  arrested, 
by  a  direct  denial  of  the  ordinances  by  which  God 
has  appointed  Society  to  go  forward. 

Just  as  the  intellect  of  the  individual  man  is 
ordained  to  be  both  a  producer  and  a  receiver, 
and  to  grow  strong  by  both  these  activities ;  just 
as  a  reciprocal  taking  in  and  giving  out, — inhala 
tion  and  expiration, — is  the  law  of  organic  life, 
vegetable,  animal,  intellectual,  moral,  so  it  is  with 
the  growth  of  Society ;  so  it  is  with  any  particu 
lar  local  Society.  The  body  must  both  receive 
and  impart ;  it  must  eat  and  work ;  there  must 
be  respiration  and  perspiration.  Pores  and  cells 
and  senses  must  be  open  to  influence, — inflowings 
from  abroad ;  and,  equally,  sinews,  limbs,  powers, 
must  be  ready  for  action  outward,  from  within. 
"  So  build  we  up  our  being."  So,  inch  by  inch, 
and  bud  by  bud,  the  tree  builds  up  its  tower 
ing  trunk,  its  pillared  branches,  its  dome  of  living 
green.  So  Society  builds  up  its  more  wonderful, 
complex  organism,  beneficent  and  beautiful.  And 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  255 


in  each  and  all  of  them,  it  is  God  that  is  the 
real  Builder, — the  "  wise  master-builder," — working 
ever,  through  alternate  regularity  and  variation,  that 
thing  which  is  best,  by  his  own  divine  and  per 
fect  law. 

The  preparations  for  this  mutual  process  are  laid, 
fast  and  fruitful,  in  our  social  nature.  By  both 
propensities  man  is  ever  pushed  toward  his  fellow- 
man, — by  the  desire  to  gain  from  him,  by  the 
desire  to  impart  to  him.  Hence  intercourse,  in 
struction,  commerce,  travel,  colonization.  Thereby 
different  communities,  as  villages,  cities,  tribes,  na 
tions,  extend  and  flourish.  In  proportion  as  the 
social  propensity  has  room  to  play  itself  out  into 
action,  gets  air  and  light,  the  people  prospers. 
Shut  it  up  to  itself,  and  it  is  starved  and  dwin 
dled.  As  to  all  the  grand  objects  of  a  noble 
commonwealth,  insulate  it  and  it  pines  away, 
gasping  for  the  breath  of  life. 

Surveying  social  history,  to  see  how  its  strongest 
movements  have  sprung  up,  where  its  most  rapid 
advancements  have  been  achieved,  where  the  seats 
of  its  intensest  energy  have  been  planted,  you 
will  see  this  law  everywhere  fulfilled.  Where  social 
communications  have  been  freest,  civilization  has 
ripened  fastest.  Interchange  has  been  inspiration. 
Mixtures  of  bloods  have  been  parents  of  pro- 


256  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

gress  and  power.  Contact  of  humanity  with 
humanity  has  been  like  the  touch  of  the  prophet's 
bones ;  it  has  made  the  dead  start  up  alive. 
It  is  the  true  Promethean  fire,  running  from 
country  to  country,  leaping  from  heart  to  heart, 
passed  in  lamps  and  torches  from  hand  to  hand 
as  they  meet,*  animating,  brightening,  gladdening 
the  world.  It  never  poisons  nor  palsies  those 
that  take  it,  nor  binds  them  on  a  rock,  nor 
eats  out  their  vitals.  It  emancipates  them  rather 
from  the  bondage  of  their  barbarism,  and  from 
the  vultures  of  ignorance,  superstition  and  sloth. 

It  was  when  the  eastern  tribes  began  to  stir 
and  intermix,  that  ideas  began  to  take  the  place 
of  mere  physical  necessities,  in  controlling  human 
life.  The  shocks  of  nation  against  nation  woke  up 
the  intellect  from  its  lethargy,  and  struck  out 
vastly  more  of  discovery,  of  thought,  of  original 
force,  than  would  have  come  from  a  mere  addition 
of  the  several  amounts.  It  was  not  a  process  of 
addition  but  of  multiplication.  As,  in  certain  chem 
ical  combinations,  you  get  not  only  the  aggregate 
of  the  substances  you  throw*  in,  but  new  qualities, 
finer  forces,  or  fairer  forms,  b^  their  chemical  ac 
tion,  so  in  the  great  crucible  of  a  continent,  when 
you  pour  the  currents  of  national  life  together,  by 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  257 

certain  secret  forces  of  assimilation  and  repulsion 
higher  institutions,  better  forms  of  civilized  society, 
appear.  In  his  eloquent  and  very  instructive  work 
on  "  The  Earth  and  Man,"  Professor  Guyot  has 
so  ably  handled  and  exhausted  the  whole  subject 
of  the  divine  adaptation  and  relation  between  the 
physical  and  the  moral  creation,  that  if  I  were  to 
transfer  to  my  argument  his  ninth  and  twelfth 
lectures  entire,  I  should  only  strengthen  and  adorn 
it.  There  we  see  how  the  shapings  of  the  conti 
nents,  the  expanses  of  the  ocean,  the  courses  of 
rivers  and  the  configurations  of  hills  are  exactly 
contrived  to  favor  and  to  consummate  just  that 
social  result  which  we  have  all  along  found  indi 
cated  as  God's  design  in  Society  itself,  viz.,  unity 
in  the  midst  of  diversity, — a  common  spirit  widened 
and  deepened  by  individual  peculiarity  and  liberty. 
There  we  see  Asia,  Europe,  North  America,  as  the 
three  grand  stages  in  the  inarch  of  civilization. 
There  we  see  the  great  silent,  swinging  globe  itself, 
moving,  stirring,  impelling,  shaking  together,  and 
compacting  again,  into  an  ultimate  order  of  incon 
ceivable  magnitude  and  glory,  from  the  East  and 
from  the  West,  from  the  North  and  from  the 
South,  the  children  of  God  that  walk,  and  work, 
and  suffer,  and  think,  and  weep,  and  pray,  on  its 

breast.     Hence    it    was, — from    this    geographic    prep- 

17 


258  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

aration, — that  the  chief  developments  of  human 
enterprise  and  ingenuity  so  long  took  place  about 
the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Mediterranean.  There, 
as  Napoleon  said,  the  human  soul  throbbed  most 
powerfully.  There  all  the  natural  conditions  of 
prosperous  life  were  best  fulfilled  and  combined, — 
a  soft  climate,  various  lands,  spontaneous  and  nu 
tritious  productions,  so  that,  up  to  a  certain  point, — 
that  point,  viz.,  where  a  greater  degree  of  hardi 
hood  becomes  necessary  to  complete  manhood,  So 
ciety  was  left  free  for  its  most  favorable  mani 
festations,  wiiile  the  rude  navigation  of  those  waters 
was  a  constant  stimulant  to  the  communities  around 
it.  Later,  when  this  Mediterranean  civilization  had 
done  its  best,  and  its  several  members, — Phoenicia, 
Egypt,  Tyre,  Greece,  Italy,  Spain,  Carthage, — had 
done  all  for  each  other  that  they  could  do, — how 
was  the  next  great  step  forward  to  be  taken  ? 
Providence  answered,  by  bringing  down  a  new  ele 
ment  from  the  North ;  a  rough  bridegroom  from 
the  forest  for  this  southern  bride.  To  be  sure,  it 
was  a  wild  wooing,  and  a  fiercer  wedlock ;  but 
nevertheless  the  marriage  was  pronounced ;  the  do 
mestic  doors  of  Europe  were  opened ;  the  nations 
mixed ;  God's  designs  went  forward.  With  their 
quick,  bold  faculties,  Goths,  Vandals,  Franks, 
adopted  whatever  was  best  in  the  life  of  the 


A     LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT.  259 

countries  they  conquered.  Then  the  scene  of  hu 
man  activity  was  shifted  to  another  thenrtre,  further 
west.  Germany,  France,  Great  Britain,  and  Italy, 
by  their  action  and  interaction,  strife  and  treaty, 
stimulus  and  competition,  took  up  and  bore  forward 
the  ameliorations  of  the  world.  Arts,  sciences, 
printing,  and  a  wider  commerce,  were  finally  born. 
And  by  commerce,  later  yet,  just  when  a  larger 
scope  was  wanted,  the  veil  was  lifted  before  a 
more  magnificent  theatre  still.  Not  now  a  union 
of  the  nations  of  a  continent,  but  of  continents 
themselves !  Columbus  came.  America  was  found. 
The  new  career  began  of  that  admixture,  on  a 
scale  of  unprecedented  grandeur,  of  which  the  ulti 
mate  results,  after  three  centuries  and  a  half,  lie 
still  unforeseen,  unimagined,  undreamed  in  the 
future. 

From  one  point  in  the  interior  of  Asia,  little  more 
than  a  dot  on  the  rind  of  the  globe,  the  waves 
of  advancing  civilization  steadily  spread.  They 
crept  slowly  to  the  Mediterranean.  The  Persian 
power  gave  the  human  tide  a  new  impulse  and 
sent  it  to  the  ^gean.  The  Greeks  bore  it  for 
ward  to  the  Adriatic.  The  Romans  pressed  it 
on  to  the  Atlantic.  There  it  rested  long,  baf 
fled  by  the  waste  sea,  till,  in  the  fulness  of  time, 
God  put  the  freight  of  an  old  world's  hope  into 


260  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

the  fragile  fleet  of  a  Genoese  sailor  and  floated  it 
to  the  new.  Two  formidable  ramparts  of  mount 
ains,  and  as  many  thousands  of  miles,  are  con 
quered  in  three  centuries  more.  Then  California 
launches  for  China.  The  Pacific, — name  of  prophecy 
and  promise, — ocean  of  the  world's  final  peace, — is 
crossed.  The  colonizing  of  the  Pacific  islands  com 
pletes  the  chain.  Diffusion  first,  then  assimilation. 
First  the  genius  of  Progress  peoples  the  earth. 
Then  she  returns  on  her  track,  resets,  in  better  sym 
metry,  the  growths  she  had  planted,  and  makes  the 
expanded  household  one.  Dispersion  is  a  civilizer; 
and  so  is  centralization ;  each  in  turn ;  each  counter 
poised  by  the  other.  "  Give  me  the  map  of  a  coun 
try,"  says  Cousin,  "its  configuration,  its  climate,  its 
waters,  its  winds,  its  natural  productions,  its  botany, 
its  zoology,  and  all  its  physical  geography,  and  I 
pledge  myself  to  tell  you  what  will  be  the  man 
of  this  country,  and  what  place  this  country  will 
occupy  in  history." 

If  finer  specimens  of  our  kind,  and  loftier  degrees 
of  civilization,  are  to  be  developed  on  this  hemi 
sphere  than  ever  before,  it  will  be  because  here 
the  people  of  all  the  nations  on  the  earth  meet 
each  other  on  more  liberal  terms,  and  enter  into 
less  obstructed  alliances ;  because  no  narrow  na 
tional  policy  bars  any  out.  and  no  oppression  of 


A     LAW      OF      ADVANCEMENT.  261 

government  enslaves  any  after  they  are  in;  be 
cause  all  bring  their  gifts,  their  traditions,  their  fac 
ulties,  their  blood,  their  hopes,  their  faiths,  and  fusing 
them  all  together,  doubtless  through  many  a  collision 
uncomfortable  to  taste  and  awkward  to  prejudice,— 
yet  under  the  benign  and  foreseeing  Providence  ot 
the  Father  of  them  all,  work  out,  and  rear  peace 
fully  together  such  a  Christian  commonwealth  of 
mind  and  heart  and  conscience  and  will,  of  beauty 
and  strength,  of  law  and  love,  as  the  sun  never 
beheld* 

Peacefully;  you  mark  that  word;  and  you  say 
it  suggests  a  painful  commentary.  For,  very  often, 
these  mixtures  of  peoples  have  been  effected  only 
through  fire  and  sword,  through  campaigns,  sieges, 
slaughters.  Can  these  be  social  agencies  ?  Are 
they  not  anti-social  rather,  springing  from  hate,  not 
love  ?  Is  war  ever  a  civilizer  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  cannot  be  put 
into  a  single  word.  If  men  had  been  ready  and 
equal  to  the  progressive  plans  of  Providence,  —  if 
those  plans  took  no  resistance  nor  contravention 
from  mortal  passions,  mortal  sluggishness,  or  selfish 
ness,  I  suppose  the  social  mixtures  I  have  referred 
to  would  be  effected  without  hostile  collisions.  Our 

*  Hegel  supposes  the  logical  end  of  human  history  to  be  on  the 
continent  of  Europe, — probably  in  Prussia. 


262  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

presumptions,  in  such  a  field  of  speculation,  ought, 
of  course,  to  be  modest.  But  it  seems  at  least 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  in  that  case,  the  steady 
march  of  improvement  would  be  no  march  of 
armed  hosts,  with  bloody  hands ;  the  horrible  arts 
and  machinery  of  destruction  would  be  displaced 
by  industry  and  friendly  traffic ;  countries  would 
open  their  gates  to  each  other,  learn  war  no  more, 
and  thrive,  as  they  ultimately  will,  surely  as  God 
lives,  on  one  another's  prosperity.  And  yet,  not 
withstanding  the  obvious  incongruity  between  blood 
shed  and  a  spirit  of  social  progress,  by  looking 
further  down,  we  shall  discover  a  certain  philosoph 
ical  and  real  relation  between  them.  Taking  men 
as  they  are,  with  all  their  deformities,  and  weak 
nesses,  and  ignorances,  wars  have  come  about,  in 
the  accomplishment  of  the  same  ends  which  would 
have  been  accomplished  otherwise  had  men  been 
what  they  ought  to  be.  The  social  instinct  has 
pushed  men  on,  to  meet  each  other,  and  occupy 
the  globe.  Encountering  opposition,  they  have 
fought.  With  what  was  natural  and  providential  in 
these  instincts,  self-interest  and  violence  have  pro 
fusely  mingled.  Yet  even  then,  how  often  has  the 
overruling  hand  of  God  come  in  to  turn  the  war 
rior  and  destroyer  into  servants  of  his  will,  to 
make  the  wrath  and  the  policy  and  the  powder  of 


A      LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT.  26 


man  to  praise  him,  to  gather  from  the  field  of 
havoc  some  harvest  of  human  welfare  afterwards, — 
as  the  sweet,  yellow  grain  waves  every  summer  on 
the  acres  of  Waterloo.  The  military  occupation  of 
the  Scottish  Highlands,  after  the  battle  of  Cullo- 
den,  was  an  advantage  to  that  rude  region  which 
can  be  traced  in  all  its  subsequent  condition.  Fol 
lowing  almost  every  great  war,  there  has  been  a 
new  impulse  to  human  progress.  Old  conventions 
and  abuses  were  broken  up ;  old  prejudices,  super 
stitions,  dynasties  were  sundered ;  old  chains  were 
snapped  to  pieces.  Nations  burst  through  their  for 
mer  boundaries ;  they  crossed  their  blood ;  they 
sharpened  their  brains ;  they  liberalized  their  judg 
ments  ;  they  enlarged  their  experience.  A  fresh 
start,  though  often  a  short  and  interrupted  one, 
was  given  to  the  general  advance.  The  actors  in 
the  struggle  may  have  been  rapacious,  cruel,  infa 
mous.  They  followed  a  horrid  and  accursed  trade. 
But  if  all  the  evil  was  man's,  all  the  final  good 
was  God's ;  and  the  last  and  greatest  victory  is 
always  the  victory  of  his  love. 

So,  friends,  the  Almighty  Providence,  which  never 
sleeps,  draws  his  children  on.  And  where  he 
draws,  it  is  no  aimless  movement.  We  see  but  the 
surface,  —  or  only  margins  and  glimpses  of  the 
mighty  plan.  All  the  revolutions  of  our  latest 


264  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

times  are  only  the  breaking  crests  of  a  wave  of 
light  that  has  been  rolling  on,  ever  since  God  di 
vided  the  ocean  from  the  land,  the  morning  from 
the  night.  The  world  is  not  a  self-impelled  caprice. 
History  is  not  a  tangled  skein.  Civilization  is  not 
scattered  by  chance,  but  grows  by  law.  We  call 
single  events,  or  lordly  men,  the  causes  of  great 
epochs.  But  the  causes  lie  deeper  and  act  further 
than  single  events  or  the  lordliest  men.  They  are 
bedded  deep  by  the  Creator  in  the  bosom  of  Hu 
manity.  They  act  through  long  reaches  of  social 
succession.  Moses,  inspired  prophet  as  he  was,  did 
not  rear  the  Hebrew  commonwealth,  nor  emanci 
pate  Israel ;  but  He  who  said  to  Moses,  "The  I 
AM  hath  sent  thee."  "  The  Roman  republic  was 
overthrown,  not  by  Csesar  and  Pompey,  but  by 
that  condition  of  things  which  made  Caesar  and 
Pompey  possible."  Luther,  Calvin  and  Zuingle  did 
not  reform  Europe,  and  transform  the  Church,  but 
He,  the  Church's  Head,  their  Lord  and  Master, 
who  said  once,  and  says  forever,  "  If  the  Truth 
shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed." 
Washington  and  the  immortal  signers  of  the  Dec 
laration  did  not  create  American  independence,  nor 
drive  back  the  troops  of  the  Crown,  but  that 
Arm  that  overturns  and  delivers,  that  pulleth  down 
one,  and  setteth  up  another. 


A     LAW     OF      ADVANCEMENT. 


-(;-> 


Down  through  all  that  mingled  play  of  the  evil 
and  the  good  that  have  made  up  the  fortunes  of 
the  world,  there  has  run  the  adamantine  chain  of  a 
heavenly  Design.  Its  first  link  is  held  by  the 
hand  of  a  personal  God ;  and  however  dim  our 
eyes  may  be  in  tracing  out  its  windings,  yet, 
when  all  shall  be  unfolded  at  last,  faith  tells  us 
that  it  will  end  where  it  began;  that  the  last 
link  shall  lie  firmly,  with  the  first,  in  the  same 
Father's  hand,  binding  all  in  one,  and  all'  to  Him. 

As  with  construction,  so  with  retribution.  When 
the  crime  and  selfishness  of  empires  stop  the  com 
ing  of  the  Son  of  Man  too  long,  and  humanity 
falls  helpless  among  thieves  and  robbers,  and  op 
pression  heaps  its  insults  in  the  face  of  Heaven's 
anointed,  then  the  same  law7  that  went  forth  once 
from  Jerusalem  comes  in  justice  again.  Again  you 
see  the  hand-writing  of  the  fingers  on  the  walls  of 
tyranny,  and  hear  the  footsteps  of  the  Avenger. 
Then  the  awful  Presence,  from  which  nothing  hides, 
moves  in  among  corrupted  courts,  or  guilty  senates, 
or  cabinets  that  sell  man  and  truth  for  gold. 
Then,  by  the  direct  and  irresistible  working  of  the 
social  laws,  commercial  robbery,  the  monopolies  of 
wealth,  or  Corinthian  manners,  prepare  and  inflict 
for  themselves  Heaven's  merciful  revenge.  Then 
what  conformity  had  disordered,  reform,  with  a 


266  SOCIETY     SUBJECT     TO 

face  of  terror,  and  hands  of  iron  that  break  in 
pieces,  yet  with  a  heart  of  compassion,  comes  to 
purify  and  to  heal.  And  though  venerable  and 
beautiful  forms  are  shattered,  it  is  to  liberate  a 
spirit  imprisoned  in  them,  more  venerable,  more 
beautiful,  because  more  useful  still. 

"  Young  Romance  raised  his  dreamy  eyes, 

O'erhung  with  dainty  locks  of  gold  ; 
Why  smite,  he  asked,  in  sad  surprise, 
The  fair,  the  old  ? 

"  Yet  louder  rang  the  strong  one's  stroke, 

Yet  nearer  flashed  his  axe's  gleam ; 
Shuddering  and  sick  at  heart  I  woke, 
As  from  a  dream. 

"  I  looked  :  aside  the  dust-cloud  rolled ; 

The  waster  seemed  the  builder  too  ; — 
Upspringing  from  the  ruined  Old 
I  saw  the  New. 

"  'T  was  but  the  ruin  of  the  bad, — 

The  wasting  of  the  wrong  and  ill ; 
Whate'er  of  good  the  old  time  had 
Was  living  still. 

"  Calm  grew  the  brow  of  him  I  feared ; 

The  frown  which  awed  me  passed  away, 
And  left  behind  a  smile  that  cheered 
Like  breaking  day. 


A     LAW     OF     ADVANCEMENT.  267 

"  The  grass  grew  green  on  battle-plains, 

O'er  swarded  war-mounds  grazed  the  cow  ; 
The  slave  stood  forging,  from  his  chains, 
The  spade  and  plough." 

"  Thus  the  gazers  of  the  nations,  and  the  watchers  of  the  skies, 
Looking  through  the  coming  ages,  shall  behold,  with  joyful  eyes, 
On  the  fiery  track  of  Freedom  fall  the  mild  baptismal  rain, 
And  the  ashes  of  old  evil  feed  the  Future's  golden  grain." 


LECTURE    VIII. 

SOCIETY    THE   SPHERE  OF  THE  KINGDOM   OF    CHRIST   ON    EARTH. 

THE    first     announcement    of     Christianity    to    the 
world    contained    in    it   a   promise    of    a    new    order 
of    Society.     When  the  Divine   Person  that  embodied 
and    proclaimed    this    religion    came    forward,    out    of 
the    retirements    of    Nazareth,    to    his    public    minis 
try,   he    came   not   only  as  the   Regenerator  and    Re 
deemer  of   the    individual   heart,   but   as    a    Recreator 
of     social     institutions     and     the    Saviour    of    states. 
Earlier    yet,    the    anticipations    of    prophecy   had    de 
scribed     him     as     the    Author     of     a    commonwealth 
complete    in    compass,    power,    harmony,    every    civic 
glory.      The     imagery     that     pictured    that    foreseen 
splendor      was      drawn      from     social     reconciliations, 
swords   beaten   into   ploughshares,    Ethiopia   stretching 
out     her    hands,     the     wolf    lying     down     with    the 
lamb,   tyranny  and  hatred   vanished   from    the   family 
of    nations.     In   these    generous    predictions    we    hear 
the     mighty     forechant     of     that     universal     anthem 
which   is    to   rise    from    all    the    round    world,    Chris 
tianized   and   consecrated    at   last.   '  The    Messiah    ex- 


270  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

pected  was  to  be  a  Prince  of  unbroken  peace, 
and  of  his  brotherly  kingdom  there  should  be  no 
end. 

At  his  actual  coming,  these  animating  and  be 
nignant  promises  were  more  than  confirmed.  The 
first  voice  that  declared  his  nativity, — ringing 
through  the  midnight  sky  over  Bethlehem, — the 
celestial  chorus  startling  the  shepherds, — was  a  song 
of  hope  for  social  man,  as  well  as  a  "  Gloria  in 
Excelsis"  to  the  Creator ;  for,  after  its  first  sub 
lime  ascription  to  Heaven,  comes  instantly  the 
"  Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men."  Every  su 
pernatural  sign  spoke  of  human  reformation.  The 
Advent  was  a  coming  of  the  Son  of  God  to 
weary,  oppressed,  sorrowing  humanity.  The  Epiph 
any  was  a  manifestation  of  the  Father  to  an 
alienated,  scattered  household.  The  Passion  was  a 
redemptive  suffering  for  a  bleeding  social  body,  no 
less  than  for  lost  solitary  souls.  Throughout  all 
his  benign  ministry,  Christ  planted  virtues  which 
are  the  very  binding  and  healing  and  building  of 
the  social  state.  With  the  clearest  emphasis  he 
affirmed  that  his  mission  was  to  rear  a  world-wide 
home  for  the  tribes  of  the  earth, — under  one  Father 
and  one  law, — "  that  they  all  might  be  one."  To 
this  purified  and  Christian  society  he  gave  a  social 
name — the  Church.  Its  organizing  principle  was  to 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.  271 

be  the  spirit  of  his  own  life  and  gospel,  wrought 
first  into  the  convictions  and  thus  into  the  whole 
development  and  conformation  of  the  race. 

The  reach  of  time  it  will  require  to  work  this 
consummation  out  is  never  estimated.  The  uncer 
tain  and  variable  element  is  the  freewill  of  man ; 
the  element  fixed  and  sure  is  the  decree  of  God. 
All  we  know  of  the  period  of  the  plan  is  that  it 
is  His  with  whom  one  day  is  as  a  thousand 
years.  Whenever  the  result  is  accomplished,  it  will 
doubtless  be  through  the  voluntary  consent  of  men 
themselves,  who  are  to  be  the  material  as  well  as 
the  architects  of  the  structure.  In  my  last  Lec 
ture  I  endeavored  to  show  that  though  the  rate 
is  not  uniform,  nor  the  progress  equal  as  to  place, 
the  causes  that  shall  finally  work  that  Christian 
commonwealth  into  realization,  act  steadily  and  un 
ceasingly,  from  age  to  age,  with  the  constancy  and 
the  power  of  law. 

Now  the  means  by  which  this  grand,  ultimate 
destiny  of  mankind  is  to  be  achieved,  we  know. 
It  is  by  the  ideas  and  affections,  i.  e.,  by 
the  spiritual  forces,  —  planted  germinally  by  the 
Creator  in  humanity,  and  manifested  perfectly  in 
the  one  Divine  Man.  In  history  we  know  them 
as  Life ;  in  the  gospel  as  Truth.  What  we  name 
Christianity  is  the  clear  and  complete  affirmation 


272  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

of  them  by  that  mediatorial  Being,  in  his  action, 
in  his  speech,  in  his  death,  in  his  resurrection,  in 
the  eternal  intercessory  and  inspiring  office  of  his 
Lordship  in  the  heavens.  Thus  the  social  constitu 
tion  of  man,  and  the  revelation  in  Christ,  are  the 
two  correlated,  complemental  forces,  which  bear  for 
ward  the  progress  of  the  world.  Together,  they 
prepare  that  renewed,  just,  free,  merciful  and  holy 
society  which  the  New  Testament  repeatedly  char 
acterizes  as  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth,  and 
which  is  the  symbol,  the  archetype,  and  the  be 
ginning  of  that  final  and  everlasting  kingdom 
which  shall  be  when  there  shall  be  new  heavens 
and  a  new  earth.  This,  in  as  few  terms  as  I  am 
able  to  present  it,  is  the  key  to  the  Christian 
philosophy  of  history. 

It  follows  that  when  the  great  truths  of  Chris 
tianity  shall  have  become  embodied  in  the  actual 
forms  of  government,  education,  trade,  art,  letters, 
mercy,  manners  and  worship,  and  shall  have  con 
trolled  Society  by  their  living  power,  then  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  will  have  come.  Whether  this 
result  is  ever  to  be  an  historical  fact  on  this 
planet,  i.  e.,  whether  the  human  race  is  literally 
perfectible, — or  whether,  in  a  state  meant  to  be 
disciplinary  and  preparatory,  it  shall  be  realized 
only  in  approximate  and  ever-ascending  degrees,  is 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          273 

not  important  to  the  integrity  of  our  reasoning.  It 
is  enough  if  all  the  currents  of  history  stream 
that  way,  and  if  both  the  tendencies  and  aspira 
tions  of  men  point  and  climb  ever  to  the  same 
zenith  of  the  future.  It  is  the  distinctively  Chris 
tian  element  of  this  view  which  distinguishes  it 
from  an  atheistic  theory  like  that  of  Auguste 
Comte,  who  would  make  the  three  great  eras  of 
perfected  humanity  to  be  the  Metaphysical,  the 
Theological  and  the  Scientific,  and  would  subordi 
nate  religion  to  "  positive  knowledge  :"  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  its  comprehensive  character,  as  embrac 
ing  all  of  Christendom,  which  distinguishes  it  from 
the  limited  conceptions  of  Christian  writers  like 
Bossuet  and  Schlegel,  who  would  confine  all  possi 
ble  progress  to  the  Roman  Catholic  communion. 

The  position  taken  is  this  :  It  is  through  men's 
social  relations  and  affections,  that  Christ,  the  Head 
of  the  race,  proposes  to  construct  his  spiritual  em 
pire,  his  church.  What  we  name  history  is  only 
the  unrolling  of  the  scenes  of  that  construction. 
Old  Thomas  Fuller  is  justified  in  saying  that  of 
the  four  proper  aims  of  the  historian,  the  first  is 
the  glory  of  God.  For  what  this  reverent  scholar 
would  place  first  in  the  writing  of  history,  God 
himself  has  plainly  put  first  in  the  history  to 
be  written.  Even  Montesquieu,  who  in  an  earlier 

18 


274  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

work*  spoke  lightly  of  Christianity,  after  experience 
had  matured  his  mind  acknowledged  that  it  was 
not  only  the  most  perfect  form  of  religion,  but  the 
principal  "  support  of  the  social  system." 

Men  may  dispute  whether  there  was  a  golden 
age  in  the  Past,  but  there  shall  be  a  true  golden 
age  before  us :  prophecy  foretells  it ;  hope  reaches 
toward  it ;  experience  opens  her  secret  pledges  of 
it ;  all  the  voices  of  heaven  and  earth  promise 
it ;  and  imagination  has  only  to  bring  her  pencil 
of  brilliant  light  to  picture  its  scenery  of  majesty 
and  splendor :  a  period,  in  the  slightly  altered  and 
beautiful  language  of  Coleridge,  "  when  conscience 
shall  act  in  man  with  the  ease  and  uniformity  of 
instinct ;  when  labor  shall  be  a  sweet  name  for 
the  activity  of  sane  minds  in  healthful  bodies,  and 
all  enjoy  in  common  the  bounteous  harvest  pro 
duced  by  common  effort :  when  there  shall  exist 
in  the  sexes,  and  in  the  individuals  of  each  sex, 
just  variety  enough  to  call  forth  the  gentle  rest 
lessness  and  final  union  of  chaste  love  and  indi 
vidual  attainment,  each  seeking  and  finding  the  be 
loved  one  by  the  natural  affinity  of  their  beings ; 
when  the  Sovereign  of  the  universe  shall  be 
known  only  as  the  universal  Parent, — no  altar  but 

*  Lettres  Persanes. 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          275 

the    pure    heart,    and    thanksgiving   and    grateful   love 
the   sole   sacrifice." 

"  Then  comes  the  statelier  Eden  back  to  men ; 
Then  reign  the  world's  great  bridals,  chaste  and  calm  ; 
Then  springs  the  crowning  race  of  human  kind." 

Such  a  result  can  stand  second  to  no  other  in 
the  purposes  of  God  for  mankind.  If  Society  is 
the  proper  and  pre-adapted  theatre  for  the  embodi 
ment  and  the  free  working  out  of  the  vital  ideas 
of  Christianity,  then  no  other  proof  can  be  brought 
forward,  so  clear  and  so  decisive,  that  Society  is 
a  practical  illustration  of  the  Power,  and  the  Wis 
dom,  and  the  Goodness  of  God.  For  these  ideas 
are  the  very  hiding  of  his  Power,  and  the  Light 
of  his  Wisdom ;  the  human  souls  they  fill  and  ac 
tuate  are  the  very  children  of  his  Fatherhood,  the 
joy  of  his  infinite  heart  of  love. 

As  I  shall  arrange  and  mention  them,  these 
ideas  are  seven :  1.  The  Historic  Unity  of  Man 
kind.  2.  Dependent  Trust,  or  Faith.  3.  Moral  Rec 
titude.  4.  Charity.  5.  Obedience.  6.  The  Balance 
of  Conservatism  and  Reform.  7.  Voluntary  Sacri 
fice. 

I.  Society  is  the  appointed  sphere  of  the  spirit 
ual  kingdom  of  Christ,  because  a  moral  and  or 
ganic  unity  embraces  its  parts  and  links  together 


276  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

its  successive  generations.  Were  there  no  such 
law  of  transmission,  no  chain  of  connection  between 
age  and  age,  no  hereditary  conveyance  of  moral 
qualities,  then  it  is  evident  Christianity  could  get 
no  leverage,  and  no  grasp  on  the  world's  motives. 
We  could  not  speak  of  the  building  of  a  kingdom, 
or  the  unfolding  of  a  method  of  progression.  Each 
rank  of  souls  must  then  begin  at  the  same  starting- 
place,  and  drop  at  the  same  goal.  The  operation  of 
Christian  Truth  on  the  ages  would  be  only  a  mo 
notonous  repetition  of  the  same  unfinished  experi 
ment,  ever  begun  with  the  birth,  ever  broken  off 
with  the  death,  of  the  individual. 

It  requires  only  a  moderate  study  of  the  actual 
operation  of  Christian  truth  around  us  every  day 
to  see  how  the  hereditary  relations  are  taken  up 
and  made  use  of  as  an  effectual  remedial  agency 
to  recover  men  from  their  evils.  If  souls  fall  out 
of  the  way  by  these  connections  when  they  are 
vitiated,  so  are  they  manifestly  restored  by  them 
when  they  are  sanctified.  This  line  of  thought  has 
been  very  ingeniously  and  eloquently  pursued  by  a 
writer  of  our  own  day,*  who  asks,  "  What  intelli 
gent  person  ever  supposed  that  this  original  consti 
tution,  by  which  one  generation  derives  its  exist 
ence  and  receives  the  bent  of  its  character  from 

*  Rev.  Horace  Bushnell,  D.D.,  in    "Christian  Nurture*" 


KINGDOM     OF     CHKIST     ON     EARTH.          277 

another,  was  designed  of  God  to  be  the  vehicle 
only  of  depravity?  The  only  supposition  that 
honors  God  is  that  the  organic  unity  was  ordained 
originally  for  the  nurture  of  holy  virtue  in  the 
beginning  of  each  soul's  history ;  and  that  Chris 
tianity,  or  redemption,  must  of  necessity  take  pos 
session  of  the  abused  vehicle,  and  sanctify  it  for 
its  own  merciful  uses." 

In  the  language  of  another,  "  Philosophy  ever 
contemplates  man  as  a  concrete, — humanity  entire 
in  its  unity.  Experience,  with  its  broadest  induc 
tions,  confirms  the  existence  of  a  law  above  that 
which  reigns  in  the  individual,  and  which  binds  all 
individuals  in  one  community.  The  perpetuation  of 
the  characteristic  human  form,  and  mental  faculty, 
and  relative  proportion  of  sex,  and  the  one  con 
secutive  stream  of  historic  development  for  men, 
all  evince  that  there  is  a  persistent  causality,  be 
fore  and  above  all  individual  peculiarity."  It  is 
plain  that  only  on  such  a  law  of  unity  in  the 
race,  and  out  of  its  practical  energy,  could  there 
be  planted  and  reared  a  social  institution,  ever  ad 
vancing  to  the  realization  of  a  heavenly  ideal, 
like  the  Christian  church.  "  An  unbroken  and  real 
spiritual  chain  of  instruction,  example,  influence, 
fellowship,  connects  Abraham,  the  6  father  of  the 
faithful,'  with  the  lastest  generation  that  shall  walk 


278  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

in  the  footsteps  of  his  faith, — the  cradle  of  the 
Church  in  the  tent  of  Mamre,  and  its  school-days 
in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  with  the  widest  and 
most  spiritual  triumphs  of  its  maturity." 

Hence  the  secret  current  of  transmitted  and 
generative  life,  in  the  order  of  successive  spiritual 
dispensations, — each  an  outgrowth  of  the  foregoing, 
—each  prophesying  and  preparing  its  successor. 
The  biblical  dispensations  are  three, — types  of  three 
great  principles  of  moral  action, — three  stages  in 
the  religious  discipline  of  Society  :  the  Patriarchal, 
the  Mosaic,  the  Christian ;  impulse,  law,  love ; 
nature,  government,  grace ;  instinct,  obedience,  faith ; 
Mamre,  Sinai,  Calvary.  This  is  the  order.  Natural 
impulse,  when  the  parental  arm  is  not  pressed 
around  it,  runs  wild,  and  needs  the  restraining 
hand  of  law.  Moses  comes  with  his  command 
ments,  ordinances,  ritual,  and  manifold  rules  and 
ceremonies,  to  yoke  the  wayward  will  in  obedience, 
— an  age  of  legality.  Afterwards,  in  the  fulness 
of  time,  when  the  schoolmaster  has  done  his  work, 
when  man  by  obeying  has  grown  to  the  liberty 
of  choice,  when,  by  being  a  servant  under  the 
commandment,  he  has  learned  the  faith  to  which 
grace  can  safely  speak,  then  appears  the  Messiah : 
the  Desire  of  all  nations, — He  that  was  to  come, — 
the  great  Reality  of  all  the  symbols.  Adam  and 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.  279 

Christ  are  thus  the  two  poles  of  history.  "  The 
first  Adain  was  made  a  living  soul ;  the  second 
Adam  was  the  Lord  from  heaven."  First,  a  nat 
ural  creation,  and  an  outward  culture.  Then  a 
spiritual  creation,  and  a  regeneration  from  within,— 
Christ  formed  in  the  heart.  This  is  for  Society 
just  as  truly  as  for  the  individual ;  historical  no 
less  than  personal.  It  is  the  whole  procession  of 
the  centuries  that  strews  the  palm  branches  in  the 
way  for  the  Saviour.  The  kingdom  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  in  the  future,  is  established  on  all  the  expe 
rience  of  the  humanity  that  has  gone  before. 
And  from  the  fair  beginnings  in  the  elder  Eden, 
we  look  to  the  sublime  redemptive  consummation 
in  that  other  Paradise  that  is  to  spring  up  on 
the  earth,  yet  so  beautiful  that  it  shall  seem  to 
descend,  like  a  bride,  out  of  heaven. 

Nay,  if  we  take  our  stand  with  the  Scotch  phi 
losopher,  who  joins  faith  with  science,*  we  shall 
descry  the  preparations  of  this  final  harmony  of 
the  social  and  the  evangelical  systems  far  back 
before  the  first  man  breathed,  and  catch  the  notes 
of  the  august  prelude  among  the  inarticulate  sounds 
and  motions  of  the  pre-Adamic  creation.  "  In  the 
history  of  the  earth  which  we  inhabit,"  he  says, 
"  molluscs,  fishes,  reptiles,  mammals,  had,  each  in 

*  Hugh  Miller. 


280  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

succession,  their  periods  of  vast  duration,  and  then 
the  human  period  began, — the  period  of  a  fellow- 
worker  with  God,  created  in  God's  own  image. 
What  is  to  be  the  next  advance  ?  Is  there  to  be 
merely  a  repetition  of  the  Past  ?  No.  The  geolo 
gist,  in  those  tables  of  stone  which  form  his  rec 
ords,  finds  no  example  of  epochs,  once  passed  away, 
again  returning.  There  has  been  no  repetition  of 
the  dynasty  of  the  fish,  of  the  reptile,  of  the 
mammal.  The  dynasty  of  the  future  is  to  have 
glorified  man  for  its  inhabitant ;  but  it  is  to  be 
the  dynasty,  — '  the  kingdom,'  —  not  any  longer  of 
man  made  in  the  image  of  God,  but  of  God  him 
self  in  the  form  of  man.  There  we  find  the  point 
of  elevation,  never  to  be  exceeded,  meetly  coinci 
dent  with  the  final  period,  never  to  be  terminated, 
— the  infinite  in  height  harmoniously  associated  with 
the  eternal  in  duration.  Creation  and  the  Creator 
meet  at  one  point,  and  in  one  person.  The  long 
ascending  line  from  dead  matter  to  man  has  been 
a  progress  Godwards, — not  an  asymptotical  progress, 
but  destined,  from  the  beginning,  to  furnish  a  point 
of  union  of  man  with  his  Maker.  Like  the  Patri 
archal  and  Mosaic  dispensations  of  grace,  the  Pa 
laeozoic,  the  Secondary  and  the  Tertiary  dispensa 
tions  of  creation  were  charged  with  '  the  shadows 
of  better  things  to  come.'  The  advent  of  man, 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.         281 

simply  as  such,  was  the  great  event  prefigured 
during  the  old  geologic  ages.  The  advent  of  that 
divine  Man,  who  hath  abolished  death  and  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light,  was  the  great  event 
prefigured  during  the  historic  ages.  It  is  these  two 
grand  events,  equally  portions  of  one  sublime  scheme, 
that  bind  together  Past,  Present  and  Future,  the 
geologic  with  the  Patriarchal,  Mosaic  and  Christian 
ages,  and  all  together  with  the  new  heavens,  the 
last  of  many  creations,  when  there  shall  be  no 
more  death  nor  curse,  but  the  throne  of  God  and 
the  Lamb  shall  be  in  it,  and  his  servants  shall 
serve  him." 

II.  The  second  of  these  primary  ideas  of  Chris 
tianity  is  Dependence, — with  its  correlative  senti 
ment,  Faith.  Sooner  or  later,  man  has  to  learn 
that  he  is  weak,  and  with  a  weakness  that  does 
not  necessarily  degrade  but  is  meant  finally  to 
educate  and  exalt  him.  He  has  to  learn  that  he 
must  lean  upon  the  Power,  and  be  guided  by  the 
Wisdom,  and  be  nourished  by  the  Goodness,  that 
is  far,  far  above  him.  He  is  but  a  child  in  the 
temple,  crying,  "  Lord,  here  am  I ;  speak,  for  thy 
servant  heareth."  He  is  but  a  suppliant  asking 
alms  at  the  temple-gate  of  the  abundant  Provi 
dence.  He  is  but  the  blind  pilgrim  of  a  wide  sea, 
—  tempest  and  darkness  riding  the  waters  with 


282  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

him,  and  only  one  unseen  hand  to  make  a  safe 
path  over  the  deep.  Pain  and  sickness,  the  swad 
dling  bands  of  the  cradle  and  ,  the  shroud  with 
which  others'  hands  gird  him,  calamity  and  death, 
accident  and  the  frailties  of  age, — all  these  are  the 
stern  preceptors  and  the  sombre  symbols  of  that 
dependence.  Till  he  feels  it  as  a  fact,  till  he  con 
fesses  it  as  a  blessing,  till  he  rejoices  gratefully  in 
it  as  a  religious  bond  pressing  him  ever  back 
closer  and  closer  to  the  Fatherly  Breast  where  his 
life  is  hid,  he  is  only  an  exile  from  his  country, 
and  an  orphan  in  his  house. 

The  whole  frame  of  Society  is  a  nursery  for 
that  faith.  It  is  a  network  of  dependencies,  of 
weak  upon  strong,  of  poor  upon  affluent,  and  not 
less  of  the  slender  rich  upon  the  laboring  poor, — 
of  young  upon  old,  of  posterity  upon  ancestry,  of 
class  upon  class,  of  city  and  country  on  each 
other,  of  subject  upon  ruler,  of  debtor  upon  cred 
itor,  of  enterprise  upon  combination,  of  every  mem 
ber  upon  the  social  system  he  lives  in.  Helpless 
we  are  born  into  parental  arms,  and  lie  dependent 
there.  Helpless,  with  our  matures t  strength  and 
readiest  wit,  we  reach  out  our  faculties  towards 
other  persons,  to  hold  by  them,  and  live  from 
them.  Helpless  we  grow  old,  and  tremble  toward 
our  graves,  that  some  gentle  reverence  and  love 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.  283 

may  come,  and  uphold,  and  wait  for,  and  forbear 
with  us.  By  these  natural  leanings  we  may  learn 
our  heavenly  lesson.  They  are  the  alphabet  of 
our  immortal  trust.  Reposing  in  arms  that  shall 
crumble  one  day  to  dust,  we  come  to  feel  how  an 
Arm  that  is  never  shortened  and  never  wastes  is 
under  us.  When  the  Master  says,  "  Have  faith  in 
God,"  or  "  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,"  our  ten 
der  human  relationships  have  interpreted  the  pre 
cept  and  reecho  the  assurance ;  and  when  his 
apostle  writes,  "  With  the  heart  man  believeth,"  or 
"  Faith  is  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen,"  sweet 
motherly  faces,  noble  and  manly  foreheads,  men  we 
have  known,  of  unassailable  truth  and  honor,  or 
women  whose  constancy  finds  no  likeness  in  sun 
or  star  —  yes,  the  motherhood  we  have  nestled 
under  or  the  manhood  we  have  clung  to, — throng 
up  for  our  witnesses  that  it  is  true ;  till,  turning 
back  from  the  dependencies  of  earth  to  that  Arm 
which  never  changes  in  the  skies,  we  answer  in 
earnest,  "Lord,  I  believe;  help  thou  mine  unbelief!" 
The  social  system  is  thus  a  nursery  for  religious 
dependence  and  faith. 

III.  Next,  we  must  remember  that  Christianity 
is  a  system  not  only  of  spiritual  affections  but  of 
moral  duties;  arid  to  these  moral  duties  Society  is 
essential.  Indeed, 'they  could  have  exercise  nowhere 


284  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

else  but  in  its  reciprocal  relationships,  of  the 
family,  the  neighborhood,  traffic,  politics,  education, 
charity.  Morality  is  the  right  dealing  of  man  with 
man, — necessarily  a  social  obligation.  So  of  all  its 
several  branches,  which  we  call  virtues,  but  which 
are  in  fact  only  so  many  shoots  of  one  great 
stock  of  virtue, — the  loyal  love  of  the  Right. 
Take  justice :  where  can  it  get  such  a  discipline 
as  where  social  causes  constantly  create  the  tempta 
tion  indeed  to  defraud,  to  overreach,  to  injure,  in 
dealings,  in  competitions,  in  slanderous  speech,  yet 
where  the  social  welfare  is  ever  clearly  seen  to 
stand  exactly  accordant  with  the  precept,  "  Render 
to  every  man  that  which  is  just  and  equal?" 
Take  veracity :  the  social  world,  with  its  conflict 
of  selfish  and  generous  passions,  you  say,  is  a 
tremendous  nursery  of  falsehood ;  but  precisely  in 
the  -degree  it  is  so,  it  reveals  the  glory,  and 
measures  the  value,  of  that  simple  and  valiant 
tongue  of  truth,  without  which  all  social  peace 
sinks  in  treachery  and  despair.  Take  purity :  it  is 
only  through  the  mixtures,  solicitations  and  stimu 
lants  of  social  scenes  that  we  learn  the  meaning 
of  that  holy  beatitude,  falling  forever  from  the 
Mount :  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God."  Take  patience  :  how  should  we 
ever  learn  to  forbear,  and  forgive,  and  conquer 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          285 

petulance,  and  be  still,  if,  all  the  way,  life 
through,  child  with  child  in  the  nursery,  disease 
with  health,  differing  temperaments  with  each 
other,  partners  in  business,  wedded  pairs,  unlike 
tastes  and  habits  and  cultures  and  tempers  all 
tossed  and  huddled  together, — we  did  not  find  out 
by  vexing  lessons  how  wonderful  is  the  patience 
of  God  ?  I  confess,  the  longer  I  live,  no  attribute 
of  his  awes  me  so  much.  Take  fortitude :  and  for 
every  hero  that  bravely  adventures  against  nature, 
and  conquers  polar  ice,  or  vanquishes  the  omin 
ous  terrors  of  spectral  fears,  I  will  show  you  a 
grander  heroism,  a  loftier,  mightier  courage,  in  the 
youth  that  dares  to  do  right  in  the  boarding- 
school,  in  the  young  girl  that  dares  to  be  simple 
in  the  evening  assembly,  in  the  woman  that  dares 
to  be  independent  of  the  despotism  and  sin  of 
fashion,  in  the  man  that  dares  to  be  righteous, 
against  his  party,  his  promotion,  or  his  pocket. 
Here  are  the  trial-places  of  the  Christian  moralities. 
It  is  a  terrible  ordeal.  But  except  it  were  a  trial, 
a  choice,  and  a  battle,  there  would  be  no  morals 
that  Christ  would  accept.  And  the  same  social 
world  that  plies  the  discipline,  presents  also  the 
motive,  and  points  ever  to  the  animating  reward, 
in  that  purified  social  condition  of  which  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  is  the  name. 


286  SOCIETY     THE      SPHERE     OF     THE 

IV.  Another  of  the  cardinal  ideas  of  the  Chris 
tian  kingdom  is  disinterested  charity.  Christ  came 
into  the  world  to  move  men  to  love,  to  help,  to 
serve  each  other.  He  came  washing  poor  men's 
feet,  sitting  down  with  outcasts,  dropping  his  bene 
diction  with  the  widow's  mite.  So  wherever  his 
religion  has  gone,  mercy  has  been  one  of  its  fore 
most  offices,  and  has  been  a  test  of  its  sin 
cerity.  "  If  a  man  love  not  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath 
not  seen  ?"  The  rude  old  European  kings  made 
the  high  almoner  the  first  ecclesiastical  dignitary  in 
their  dominions,  and  took  the  sacrament  from  his 
hands.  The  offertory  became  as  necessary  a  part 
of  the  ritual  as  the  eucharist.  We  call  the  poor 
Christ's  poor;  and  we  know  that  to  neglect  them 
is  to  deny  him. 

And  evidently  man  is  charitable  because  he  is 
first  social.  The  sphere  of  this  Christian  love  can 
be  no  other  than  the  sphere  of  man's  social  sym 
pathies.  The  grand  law  of  gospel  charity  was  first 
dimly  written  in  the  constitution  of  Society.  But 
what  Society  so  deeply  needs,  only  the  motives  of 
Christian  faith  can  sustain.  Paganism,  if  it  cared 
for  the  poor  at  all,  was  prompted  only  by  fickle 
impulse  or  a  calculating  policy.  Christianity  en 
courages  the  poor,  lifts  them  out  of  their  disabili- 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.         287 

ties,  and  reassures  their  better  energies,  —  first  of 
all  because  it  sees  in  every  one  of  them  the  germ 
of  a  spiritual  and  immortal  life.  So  alms-giving  is 
transfigured  into  beneficence.  Wise  help  takes  the 
place  of  impulsive  bounty.  Paupers  are  made 
workers.  Christian  self-sacrifice  is  too  real  and  too 
patient  to  scatter  largesses,  and  go  complacently  on 
its  way.  The  love  of  man  grows  out  of  the  same 
root  with  the  love  of  God ;  Brotherhood  here  out 
of  the  Fatherhood  there.  The  only  sustainer  of 
philanthropy  is  piety.  In  many  and  many  a  holy 
enterprise  of  quiet  compassion,  throughout  Christen 
dom,  we  find  just  that  to  be  true  which  is  re 
lated  of  a  hospital  of  Sisters  of  Chanty,  for  the 
most  wretched  and  ATile  of  bed-ridden  paupers  in 
the  Old  World,  where  the  religious  women  who 
ministered  to  the  miserable  inmates  confessed  that 
their  only  refuge  from  utter  discouragement,  in  du 
ties  so  revolting,  even  after  being  years  in  the 
holy  work,  was,  by  a  special  exercise  of  united 
prayer,  every  morning,  to  dedicate  themselves  anew 
to  their  task,  "for  the  love  of  God."  So  that 
in  all  those  deeds  of  benevolence  which  bless 
degradation,  and  are  ever  redeeming  the  want 
which  still  clings  to  the  robes  of  the  Church, 
Society  and  Christianity  are  expressly  fitted  to 
each  other. 


288  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

Y.  Another  of  the  cardinal  principles  of  Chris 
tianity  is  obedience,  or,  more  exactly,  a  balance  of 
personal  liberty  and  law.  That  is  but  a  soft  and 
sentimental  moral  system  which  excludes  from  its 
circle  of  forces  the  awful  energy  of  law.  It  is  only 
when  we  attribute  to  the  lawgiver,  or  commander, 
some  touch  of  mortal  imperfection,  some  taint  of 
caprice  or  selfishness,  some  despotic  disposition, 
some  belittleing  limitation,  that  we  are  obliged  to 
associate  servility  with  obedience.  Let  the  charac 
ter  of  the  master  be  faultless  and  spotless,  —  nay, 
gathering  into  itself  all  the  energies  of  rectitude, 
and  all  the  graces  of  affection,  and  all  the  breadths 
and  depths  of  knowledge, — in  a  word,  let  him  be 
God, — and  then  obedience  rises  at  once  to  moral 
dignity,  and  we  see  that  there  are  no  grand,  pro 
portioned,  enduring,  sinewy  souls  without  it.  It  is 
only  they  who  have  been  schooled  somewhere  to 
obey,  that  are  "fit  to  command."  Obedience  breeds 
some  of  the  noblest  traits  we  ever  see  in  the 
loftiest  spirits.  Do  not  confound  it  with  fear. 
Obedience  may  spring  from  veneration,  from  thought- 
fulness,  from  love,  —  the  highest  of  all  sentiments. 
God  is  the  perfect  Good,  living.  Obedience  to  him 
is  one  form  of  gratitude, — which  is  always  the 
brother  of  magnanimity.  God  is  better  to  every 
man  than  any  man  ever  was  to  himself,  There- 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          289 

fore,    says    Christianity,    thou    shalt    keep    the    com 
mandments    of  the   Lord   thy    God. 

But  now,  Society  stands  with  this  principle  of 
obedience  for  one  of  its  chief  pillars.  The  doctrine 
of  "no  master,  no  law,  no  command,"  is  anarchy, 
and  has  been,  ever  since  time  began.  Human  So 
ciety  is  a  tuition  in  law,  very  faulty  because  its 
legislators  are  fallible,  very  fluctuating  because  all 
its  rulers  are  men.  But,  nevertheless,  everywhere, 
God  honors  it  as  the  agent  of  order,  and  accepts 
its  honest  attempt.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  the 
great  object  of  social  history  is  to  find  out  what, 
or  who  sought  to  be  obeyed,  and  thus  gradually  to 
transfer  obedience  from  the  undeserving  to  the 
worthy.  The  writer  who  maintains*  that  the  ob 
jects  of  government  are  only  temporary,  and  that 
government  itself  is  only  a  proof  of  remaining  bar 
barism,  first  confuses  thought,  and  then  abuses  lan 
guage.  Our  obedience  begins  with  our  first  con 
scious  motives, — except  where  parentage  is  faithless 
and  abnegates  its  trust ;  —  it  lasts  on  to  the  final 
breath,  except  where  rebel  passions  raise  an  insur 
rectionary  signal  on  the  way.  The  nursery,  the 
house,  the  debating  club,  the  shop,  the  office,  the 
school,  the  university,  the  army,  the  farm,  the 
professions,  all  are  girt  about  by  law,  and  subsist 

*  Herbert  Spencer's  "  Social  Statics." 
19 


290  SOCIETY      THE      SPHERE      OF      THE 

in  obedience.  Ofttimes  this  obedience  is  one  of  the 
most  voluntary  and  spontaneous  acts  of  our  souls, 
and  then  it  is  nearest  its  perfection.  Then  you 
have  got  for  your  commander,  or  master,  the  loved 
and  trusted  man.  That  is  the  happy  society. 
Some  human  form,  blending  the  honors  of  virtue 
with  the  sanctities  of  years,  looks  upon  you  with 
the  benignant  aspect  of  a  wise,  serene  soul,  and 
commands-  your  instantaneous  allegiance.  Some  ben 
efactor,  or  lover,  or  hero  of  your  private  admira 
tion,  makes  his  choice  known,  and  instantly  friend 
ship  rears  a  throne  of  authority  in  the  centre  of 
your  heart,  and  you  are  constrained  as  effectually 
as  by  any  constable's  staff,  or  cord  about  your 
wrists.  In  all  its  sacred  constitution,  Society 
preaches  the  sacredness  of  law,  and  so  points, 
with  reverent  finger,  from  human  law  to  the  di 
vine,  and  to  him  in  whose  bosom  both  have  their 
seat  at  last.  By  being  servants  we  become  chil 
dren  and  heirs.  By  law  we  gain  liberty.  By 
waiting  at  the  foot  of  Sinai,  we  are  taken  up 
into  Olivet  and  Tabor.  The  tables  of  stone  lean 
against  the  cross.  Moses  is  followed  by  the  Mes 
siah.  Beyond  the  valleys  of  Subjection  rise  the 
eternal  hills  of  Peace.  The  years  of  unquestioning 
and  obedient  toil  ended,  there  is  proclaimed  the 
«;reat  Sabbatic  festival, — where  law  is  love,  and  or- 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.  291 

der  is  choice,  and  government  is  Fatherhood,  and 
the  Ruler's  will  is  the  impulse  of  every  heart. 

Throughout  these  discussions  of  the  constitution 
of  Society,  we  have  seen  one  great  principle  run 
ning  through  its  activities,  underlying  all  its  forms, 
reappearing  in  all  its  epochs,  promoted  by  all  its 
development:  this,  viz.,  that  the  liberty  and  power 
of  the  individual  will  are  meant  to  be  held  in 
even  and  perfect  balance  with  the  common  good. 
On  the  one  side,  individual  man, — his  freedom  and 
his  rights  sacredly  guarded  from  infringement :  on 
the  other  side,  association  of  strength,  and  commu 
nity  of  heart,  never  to  be  broken  or  invaded  by 
personal  selfishness  or  interest.  In  the  final  adjust 
ment  of  these  two  ideas  will  be  the  harmony  of 
the  world.  Over  their  ultimate  reconciliation  will 
be  lifted  the  sublimest  anthem  ever  sung  since 
that  chorus  over  the  birth  at  Bethlehem. 

Now  it  is  precisely  these  two  ideas,  and  pre 
cisely  the  practical  principle  of  their  reconciliation, 
that  Christianity  proposes,  preaches  and  prepares. 
In  those  poised  and  balanced  doctrines  of  its  apos 
tle  we  find  this  compendiously  given  :  "  Every 
man  shall  bear  his  own  burden."  "Bear  ye  one 
another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfil  the  law  of  Christ." 
Said  the  Master  himself:  "Except  a  man  be  born 
again,  he  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 


292  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

heaven/'  —  and,  "  Behold,  a  new  commandment  I 
give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  another."  The 
individualizing  principle  ultimates  in  personal  char 
acter.  Need  I  tell  you  that  Christianity  every 
where  insists  on  that, — lahors  for  it,  exhorts  to  it, 
and  brings  the  whole  cluster  of  its  energetic  forces 
and  doctrines  to  achieve  it, — the  regeneration,  the 
redemption,  the  growth,  the  edifying  of  individual 
character,  —  its  whole  body  fitly  framed  together 
by  that  which  every  joint  supplieth.  The  social 
principle,  on  the  contrary,  signalizes  itself  in  some 
form  of  civil  lawr.  Not  less  does  Christianity  rec 
ognize  and  sanction  that.  It  honors  government. 
It  prizes  order.  It  loves  instituted  right.  It  bids 
us  obey  the  magistrate  and  respect  the  rule.  And 
it  does  each  for  each.  It  keeps  law  sacred  for 
the  individual ;  it  nurtures  the  individual  for  the 
brotherhood.  Thus  the  laws  of  Society  and  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  exactly  and  beautifully  agree. 

Sometimes,  however,  there  comes  a  crisis  where 
the  strong  individual  conviction  of  Bight  overrides 
every  form  of  human  law.  That  is  the  period  of 
revolution  and  reformation.  It  comes  because  the 
statutes  of  a  people  are  only  a  proximate,  and 
never  yet  a  perfect,  expression  of  the  highest  con 
science  of  Society.  It  comes  because,  in  some 
quick-sighted  and  half-inspired  soul,  the  true  sense 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          293 

of  what  is  really  best  and  really  right  transcends 
all  the  behests  of  mortal  regulation  and  all  the 
penalties  of  the  statute  book.  It  comes  because 
deep  down,  in  the  inmost  heart  of  his  chosen 
children,  God  has  written  a  Law  which  such  men 
put  higher  than  any  law  of  man's  making,  and 
because  they  know  that  it  is  only  in  obedience  to 
the  Law  higher  than  governments  or  states,  that 
the  government  of  any  state,  or  the  welfare  of 
any  people,  is  safe.  It  comes  because  Christ  him 
self  comes,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  has  not  forsaken 
humanity.  New  sunrises  of  light  and  liberty  come 
with  it.  Then  wrong  is  discrowned,  and  error  is 
beaten  down,  and  the  oppressed  go  free.  Then 
heroes  of  a  heavenly  commission  put  the  clarion  to 
their  lips,  and  the  walls  of  a  hierarchy,  or  of 
slavery,  or  of  tyranny,  are  shaken  down.  Those 
are  the  solemn  passovers  of  human  history, — turned 
afterwards  into  jubilees,  kept  by  grateful  genera 
tions  whom  the  sacrifice  set  free.  The  martyr 
dies,  on  his  scaffold  or  his  cross ;  the  letter  of 
the  old  law  killeth  him ;  it  has  just  energy 
enough  for  that  murder ;  precedent,  rule,  routine, 
law,  crucify  him.  But  the  spirit  of  Society,  when 
the  eternal  Love  breathes  into  it,  buries  his  body 
in  peace,  builds  a  monument  to  his  brave,  truthful 
name,  and,  better  yet,  lives  out  his  glorious  thought. 


294  SOCIETY      THE     SPHERE      OF     THE 

There  is  an  incident  in  Italian  history  which  so 
exactly  illustrates  this  sudden  outburst  of  irrepress 
ible  individual  inspiration,  breaking  over  the  best 
meant  law,  in  one  single  thrilling  incident,  that  I 
cannot  help  quoting  it  into  the  argument.* 

When  the  great  obelisk  brought  from  Egypt  was 
erected  by  Fontana  in  the  square  of  St.  Peter's, 
in  1586,  it  was  determined  to  make  that  gigantic 
undertaking  an  incarnation  of  the  knowledge  and 
resources  of  Rome.  They  arranged  their  tackle, 
and  spotted  their  hands,  for  the  delicate  and  peril 
ous  work.  To  make  all  safe,  and  prevent  the 
possibility  of  accident  from  some  sudden  cry,  or 
alarm,  a  papal  edict  was  proclaimed  by  Sixtus  V., 
promising  death  to  any  man  who  should  utter  a 
loud  word  till  the  engineer  gave  the  signal  that 
all  risk  was  past.  As  the  majestic  monolithe 
moved  up,  the  populace  closed  in ;  the  square  was 
crowded  with  admiring  eyes  and  beating  hearts. 
Slowly  that  huge  crystallization  of  Egyptian  sweat, 
— fit  emblem  of  the  toil-wrought  column  of  a  civ 
ilized  state, — rose  on  its  basis  ; — five  degrees,  ten, 
fifteen,  twenty ;  ah,  there  are  signs  of  faltering. 
No  matter ;  no  voice ;  silence ;  it  moves  again  ;— 
twenty-five,  thirty,  forty,  forty-three ;  it  stops ;  now 

*  The  passage  is  taken  in  substance  and  much  of  the  language 
from  a  lecture  l>y  Horatio  Greenough. 


KINGDOM      OF      CHRIST      ON      EARTH.  295 

there  is  trouble.  Lo,  those  hempen  cables,  that 
like  faithful  servants  have  obeyed  the  mathemati 
cian,  have  suddenly  lugged  out  an  order  from  God, 
not  to  hold  that  base  steady  any  longer  on  those 
terms.  The  engineer,  who  knew  the  hand-writing 
of  that  order,  trembled.  The  obedient  masons 
looked  at  each  other,  silent,  and  then  watched  the 
threatening,  hanging  mass  of  stone.  The  unspoken 
question  was,  Which  wray  would  it  fall  ?  Among 
the  crowd,  silence ;  silence  everywhere ;  obedience 
to  the  law ;  and  the  sun  poured  down  on  the  still 
ness  and  the  despair.  Suddenly,  from  out  that 
breathless  mass  of  men,  rang  a  cry,  clear  as  the 
archangel's  trumpet,  "  Wet  the  ropes  T  The  crowd 
turned  to  look.  Tiptoe  on  a  post,  in  a  jacket  of 
homespun,  his  eyes  full  of  prophetic  fire,  and  his 
whole  figure  wild  and  lost  in  his  irresistible  emo 
tion,  stood  a  workman  of  the  people.  His  words 
flashed  like  the  lightning,  and  struck.  From  the 
chief  engineer,  to  his  lowest  servant,  that  lawless 
cry  had  instant  obedience.  Water  was  dashed  upon 
the  cables ;  they  bit  fiercely  into  the  granite ;  the 
windlasses  were  manned  once  more  :  the  obelisk 
rose  to  its  place,  and  took  its  stand  for  centuries. 
"  It  is  well  that  there  is  order,  and  discipline, 
and  law;  and  even  the  pain  of  death,  perhaps,  for 
their  sake ;  for  the  divine  man,  when  God  sends 


296  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

him,  is  not  stopped  by  death,  in  that  he  bears 
life  eternal,  and  the  feeling  of  it,  in  his  breast." 
By  law,  controlling  individual  caprice ;  by  individual 
insight  and  sympathy  and  conscience  spurning  law 
and  self  and  penalty  to  the  winds  together; — So 
ciety  moves  by  both  to  its  completeness,  the  visi 
ble  temple  of  the  Spirit. 

VI.  Again,  Christianity  holds  the  even  balance 
between  the  conservation  of  what  is  old  and  the 
search  after  and  the  progress  into  what  is  new.  It 
would  advance  the  world  without  destroying  ;  it 
would  reform  constructively;  and,  only  when  there 
is  some  excess  or  fatal  obstinacy  of  evil,  seize  the 
hammer  and  the  sword,  or  grow  radical  enough  to 
lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the  social  institutions. 
Its  chosen  emblems  are  the  sunlight,  the  leaven, 
the  mustard-seed,  the  wheat;  where  no  angry  vio 
lence  quarrels  with  the  opposing  element.  It  would 
overturn  and  cast  off,  just  as  the  up-pushing  and 
vital  energy  of  the  opening  germ  casts  aside  the 
old  shell  that  gives  up  its  inner  life  to  a  nobler 
and  fairer  form.  What  is  good  it  keeps,  and 
never  suffers  to  die.  What  is  bad  it  would  so 
kill  that  the  good  shall  take  no  damage  from  the 
conflict. 

And  this,  too,  is  exactly  the  law  of  reformation 
that  Society  itself  prescribes  and  emphasizes.  By 


KINGDOM  OF  CHRIST  ON  EARTH.    207 

the  silent  or  louder  exercise  of  its  own  inherent 
forces,  it  is  forever  dropping  off  its  worn-out 
shapes,  and  dress,  and  institutions,  and  clothing 
itself  in  a  body  better  suited  to  the  wants  and 
the  work  of  its  age.  Thus  the  principles  of  its 
steady  progression  are  precisely  the  principles  of 
the  New  Testament.  It  is  still  the  sphere  of  the 
Christian  ideas.  Those  ideas  are,  in  fact,  the 
needed  guide,  safeguard,  and  steady  impulse  of  its 
headway.  Reform  without  Christianity  is  wild,  bit 
ter,  barren,  and  soon  reactionary  and  retrogressive. 
Christianity  without  reform  is  a  corruption  and  a 
falsehood.  Accordingly,  whenever  any  great  hope 
stirs  in  the  breast  of  farsighted  and  aspiring  be 
lievers,  for  social  redemption  from  any  terrible  and 
flagrant  wrong,  you  find  their  souls  kindle  and 
burn  with  the  anticipation  of  a  speedy  coming  of 
the  Son  of  man.  It  was  so  in  the  apostolic  age. 
It  has  been  so  ever  since.  By  a  natural  relation 
of  things,  the  emancipation  of  Society  is  identified 
with  a  fresh  enthronement  of  the  Messiah. 

So,  in  utterances  resounding  as  a  litany,  prayed  the 
noble  soul  of  John  Milton,  in  the  troubled  times 
of  the  English  nation,  when  the  freedom  of  the 
Commonwealth  loomed  a  little  out  of  the  despotism 
of  the  Stuarts.  "0  Thou,  the  ever-begotten  light 
and  perfect  image  of  the  Father,  intercede!  Who 


298  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

is  there  that  cannot  trace  thee  now,  in  thy  beamy 
walk  through  the  midst  of  thy  sanctuary,  amidst 
those  golden  candlesticks  which  have  long  suffered 
a  dimness  ?  Come,  therefore,  0  Thou  that  hast  the 
seven  stars  in  thy  right  hand,  appoint  thy  chosen 
priests  to  minister  before  thee,  and  duly  to  press 
and  pour  out  the  consecrated  oil  into  thy  holy 
and  ever-burning  lamps.  And  as  thou  didst  dignify 
our  fathers'  days  with  many  reA^elations  above  all 
the  foregoing  ages,  since  thou  tookest  the  flesh,  so 
the  power  of  thy  grace  is  not  passed  away  with 
the  primitive  times,  but  thy  kingdom  is  now  at  hand, 
and  thou  standing  at  the  door.  Come  forth  out  of 
the  royal  chambers,  0  Prince  of  all  the  kings  of 
the  earth !  Put  on  the  visible  robes  of  thy  impe 
rial  majesty;  for  now  the  voice  of  thy  bride  calls 
thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be  redeemed !" 

So,  too,  entreats  the  spirit  of  Charming,  standing 
on  the  confines  between  this  life  and  the  next, 
the  shadows  already  stealing  down  over  the  eyes 
that  had  gazed  forward  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
American  slave,  —  at  the  climax  of  his  last  appeal 
for  that  Christian  jubilee :  "  0  come,  thou  king 
dom  of  heaven,  for  which  we  daily  pray  !  Come, 
Friend  and  Saviour  of  the  race,  who  didst  shed 
thy  blood  on  the  cross,  to  reconcile  man  to  man, 
and  earth  to  heaven !  Come,  ye  predicted  ages  of 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.         299 

righteousness  and  love,  for  which  the  faithful  have 
so  long  yearned !  Come,  Father  Almighty,  and 
crown  with  thine  Omnipotence  the  humble  strivings 
of  thy  children  to  subvert  oppression  and  wrong, 
to  spread  light  and  freedom,  peace  and  joy,  the 
truth  and  spirit  of  thy  Son,  through  the  whole 
earth !" 

Society  protests  against  the  abuses  and  the  in 
juries  and  the  bigotries  that  mortal  passions  try 
to  foist  upon  mankind,  in  the  holy  name  of  Naz 
areth.  It  insists  that  religion  is  for  man,  as  man 
is  for  God  ;  that  the  Church  is  for  Society,  as 
Society  is  for  Christ  ;  that  the  body  is  always 
for  the  spirit,  and  never  the  spirit  for  the  body. 
The  question  it  ever  asks  is,  Dost  thou  bless 
the  family  of  man  ?  If  not,  thou  didst  not  come 
from  G  od. 

There  are  two  churches  in  Christendom;  one  the 
church  of  class-privilege,  of  a  priestly  caste, — aristo 
cratic,  dogmatic,  anti-social.  The  name  of  that  is  a 
Hierarchy.  The  other  is  a  church  of  common  senti 
ments,  of  popular  benefaction,  —  republican,  charita 
ble,  social.  The  name  of  that  is  a  Brotherhood. 

VII.  Finally,  central  to  the  life  and  power  of 
Christ's  religion  is  the  idea  of  voluntary  suffering 
to  save  others.  Pain,  sorrow,  wrong  and  sin  are 
in  the  world,  tragical  and  portentous  shapes.  Often 


300  SOCIETY     THE      SPHERE     OF     THE 

solitary  in  their  dark  visitation,  —  each  soul  tasting 
of  the  bitter  cup  alone,  no  stranger  intermeddling 
with  the  grief,  —  yet  they  are  social  shadows  also  ; 
and  by  their  wonderful  working  on  the  disinter 
ested  affections  and  the  nobler  sympathies  these 
terrible  avengers  put  on  the  beauty  of  heaven, 
and  the  phantoms  of  despair  are  changed  into  the 
angels  of  deliverance. 


"  I  know,  is  all  the  sufferer  saith, 
>X^      Knowledge  by  suffering  entereth, 
And  Life  is  perfected  by  Death." 

y 


fne  look  into  the  homes  of  men  will  be 
enough  ;  nor  will  it  matter  much  what  home  you 
choose,  so  faithful  and  so  universal  is  that  minis 
try.  Is  it  not  the  common-place  of  all  domestic 
speech,  where  sickness  and  strangerhood  come  to 
gether,  that  we  never  know,  till  we  are  troubled, 
how  friendly  the  human  heart  is,  and  how  kind 
ness  keeps  its  dwelling-place,  firm  and  warm,  even 
among  all  the  icebergs  of  selfishness  and  distrust 
that  chill  and  chafe  the  inner  sea?  Everywhere 
sorrow  melts  away  the  frost  ;  everywhere  pale 
cheeks  and  aching  limbs  are  apostles  of  mercy, 
and  regenerators  of  avarice  ;  everywhere  affliction 
and  misery  break  through  reserve,  and  turn  the 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          301 

colder  side  of  human  hearts  to  the  sun ;  every 
where  "orphanage  is  spiritual  panoply,"  tears  soften 
pride,  anguish  unlocks  timidity,  the  coffin  is  a 
signal  for  compassion,  and  pain  proclaims  anew, 
u  Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men."  Take  away 
suffering  from  humanity,  and  you  bereave  the 
world  of  how  much  of  its  spiritual  glory ! 

More  than  this ;  and  diviner  glory  than  this  :  it 
is  in  the  heart  of  humanity, — the  divinest  thing 
there, — -that  suffering  should  be  freely  and  vicari 
ously  undertaken,  to  save  some  other  from  suffer 
ing.  Love  is  equal  to  that ;  and  only  they  who 
never  loved  need  to  have  it  proved.  Parents  and 
children,  brothers  and  sisters,  lovers  and  friends, 
oh !  what  burdens,  — •  how  secret,  how  hard,  how 
bitter, — they  are  bearing,  in  all  these  houses  around 
us,  in  many  of  these  breasts  among  us  here,  to 
save  one  another  something !  It  is  a  law  that 
touches  every  form  of  life  with  sacred  splendor. 
In  millions  of  lesser  Gethsemanes  love  prays,  and 
agonizes,  and  takes  up  its  lighter  crosses,  for 
love's  clear  sake.  Frailty  expends  its  remaining 
strength  to  hide  its  kindred's  shame.  Mothers 
watch  the  stars  out  for  ungrateful  children.  The 
friend  begs  to  die  for  his  friend.  The  missionary 
leaves  home,  health,  life,  for  the  brother  he  longs 
to  rescue.  The  highest  patriotism,  heroism,  martyr- 


302  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

dom,  is  vicarious  sacrifice.  Literature  glows  with 
it ;  eloquence  is  vocal  with  it ;  music  chants  it ; 
monuments  commemorate  it;  the  aspiring  thoughts 
of  the  world  glory  in  it. 

Nay,  so  manifestly  would  the  Maker  bind  all 
together  in  bonds  of  mutual  care,  and  make  sacri 
fice  and  responsibility  keep  pace  together,  that 
very  often  this  social  suffering  is  made  involuntary 
and  inevitable.  The  crime  of  one  casts  gloom  and 
wretchedness  upon  an  innocent  household.  Rash  or 
unprincipled  men  ruin  their  partners  or  employers 
in  business.  The  carelessness  of  a  railway  con 
ductor  plunges  a  hundred  lives  into  destruction, 
and  scatters  misery  through  a  land.  In  countless 
ways,  we  have  to  be  hindered,  baffled,  sufferers 
for  other  men's  sins.  It  is  the  law  of  the  social 
constitution,  gracious,  beautiful  in  its  awfulness.  If 
one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer,  not 
only  with  it,  but  may  suffer  for  it. 

We  approach  the  world's  one  holiest  spot ;  we 
bow  towards  Calvary ;  and  this  universal  law  of 
the  race  finds  at  once  its  crowning  example  and 
its  complete  interpretation.  In  its  illustrative  and 
affecting  light,  we  read  again,  and  with  a  more 
understanding  heart,  how  our  salvation  does  indeed 
stand  in  him, — "  The  Lamb  that  was  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  There  was  One,  great 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.  303 

enough,  holy  enough,  disinterested  enough,  divine 
enough  to  be  a  Sacrifice — not  for  kindred,  not  for 
neighbors,  not  for  countrymen,  but  for  all,  of  all 
time,  that  will  believe  it.  All  the  old  imagery  of 
altars,  and  the  emblems  and  types  of  Hebrew  sac 
rifice,  grow  simple  and  significant.  Every  hour  of 
our  own  sympathetic  grief,  so  dark  in  itself,  holds 
a  lamp  of  burning  lustre  over  that  mysterious 
text, — "  Christ,  our  passover,  is  sacrificed  for  us." 
The  inmost  fact  of  Society,  the  inmost  fact  of 
Christianity,  meet  and  are  one.  The  cross  redeems 
humanity ;  humanity  cries  out  for  the  cross,  till 
the  hour  has  come,  and  then  raises  its  thanks 
givings  for  it,  till  the  latest  hour  of  time.  And 
from  all  the  tongues,  and  tribes,  and  generations, 
and  countries,  and  centuries,  from  "  the  multi 
tude  that  no  man  can  number,"  goes  up  the 
anthem,  "  Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was  slain, 
to  receive  power,  and  riches,  and  wisdom,  and 
strength,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and  blessing." 

My  friends,  who  have  patiently  followed  on  with 
me  through  these  serious  studies,  we  can  ascend 
no  higher  than  this  :  we  can  catch  no  more  heav 
enly  note.  We  can  press  no  closer  into  the  deep 
heart  of  our  theme.  Here  we  must  rest,  and 
part.  We  have  found  the  answer  to  the  world's 


304  SOCIETY     THE     SPHERE     OF     THE 

profoundest  want : — the  interpreter  of  all  the  mean 
ing  and  the  mystery  of  the  whole  historic  drama 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end ; — the  law  within 
and  above  all  other  laws,  for  the  final  destiny  of 
Society,  in  the  person  of  its  Head  and  its  Lord, 
Emmanuel,  God  with  us. 

There  the  fallen,  erring,  stumbling  race  is  recon 
ciled  again  to  its  Father.  There  Society  confesses 
its  faith.  There  law  and  love  unite.  There  mercy 
and  justice  embrace  each  other.  There  earth  and 
heaven  meet. 

How  can  I  better  or  more  briefly  recall  the 
chief  topics  I  have  touched,  than  by  simply  nam 
ing  their  bearing  on  this  ultimate  and  worthy  des 
tination  of  them  all  ?  Human  Society  manifests 
the  Power,  the  Wisdom,  and  the  Goodness  of  our 
God. 

First,  By  its  origin,  its  constitution,  its  growth, 
it  clearly  stands  the  divine  appointment,  in  itself, 
of  the  Father  of  Christ.  Secondly,  By  the  ideas  it 
embodies,  it  is  one  visible  expression  of  "  the 
Word  that  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,"  "  by 
whom  he  made  the  worlds."  Thirdly,  It  is,  in  its 
whole  structure,  relations,  and  workings,  a  disci 
pline  of  individual  character, — and  character  is  the 
immortal  fruit  of  the  Spirit.  Fourthly,  It  is  a 
school  of  mutual  help ;  and  service,  out  of  a  heart 


KINGDOM     OF     CHRIST     ON     EARTH.          305 

of  love,  is  the  grand  action  of  Christian  faith. 
Fifthly,  It  proceeds,  by  natural  methods,  which 
artificial  arrangements  cannot  permanently  hurry  noi 
re  tar  d,  in  a  sublime  movement  of  Providence. 
Sixthly,  It  is  a  motive  and  an  incentive  to  the 
human  intellect ;  and  the  consecrated  mind  is  the 
noblest  workman  of  the  truth.  Seventhly,  It  is 
ever  progressive,  in  the  sweep  and  the  drift  of 
its  moral  forces  :  and  so  it  is  a  fit  body  for  that 
inexhaustible  and  unresting  spirit  which  reaches 
forth  unto  the  things  that  are  before,  and  seeks 
to  be  perfect  as  the  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect. 
Eighthly,  It  opens  the  appropriate  sphere,  and  grad 
ually  takes  the  symmetrical  and  celestial  form,  of 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth. 

What,  then,  though  in  its  weakness  and  ignor 
ance,  its  sensuality  and  shame,  its  superstition, 
starvation  and  slavery,  its  selfish  riches,  and  un 
just  power,  and  crawling  meanness,  and  unbelieving 
lust,  and  unhallowed  toil,  the  social  creation,  in  so 
many  fields  and  cities  of  the  fair  world,  travail- 
eth  and  grqaneth  in  pain  together  until  now,  wait 
ing  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God  ? 
The  voice  still  crieth  in  that  wilderness,  "  Prepare 
ye  the  way  of  the  Lord.  Make  straight  in  that 
desert  a  highway  for  our  God.  Every  valley  shall 
be  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and  hill  shall  be 

20 


306  SOCIETY      THE      SPHERE      OF      THE 

brought  low,  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made  straight, 
and  the  rough  places  plain ;  and  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  shall  be  revealed."  There  is  the  consumma 
tion  ;  not  human,  but  divine. 

Among  the  splendid  visions  of  a  Hebrew  prophet, 
was  one  vision  of  living  creatures,  moving  on  wheels 
of  fire,  bearing  up  the  eternal  throne.  Whither  the 
Spirit  was  to  go,  the  winged  creatures  went ;  and 
they  turned  not  when  they  went.  When  the  liv 
ing  creatures  were  lifted  up,  the  wheels  were  lifted 
up ;  and  the  noise  of  their  wings  was  as  the  voice 
of  the  Almighty. 

The  world  is  waiting  for  a  realization  of  the 
vision.  Into  the  myriad  wheels  of  the  living 
social  system, — wheels  within  wheels, — is  to  come 
the  living  Spirit  from  on  high,  flooding  them  with 
the  holy  radiance  of  truth,  overshadowing  them 
with  its  wings  of  peace,  moving  them  when  it 
moves,  lifting  them  up  when  it  ascends,  by  its  'be 
nignant  and  omnipotent  will.  Then  they  will  bear 
on,  over  the  highways  that  Christian  toil  has  cast 
up,  the  church  and  cross  of  God's  love,  conquering 
the  deserts  of  suffering  and  sin  with  the  gentle 
ness  and  sunshine  of  the  morning. 

"  I  saw  the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  and  I 
heard  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven ;  Behold,  the 
tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  he  will  dwell 


KINGDOM     OF      CHRIST      ON      EARTH.          307 

with    them,    and    they    shall    be    his    people,    and  God 
himself    shall    be    with    them." 

"  As  wheeled  by  seeing  spirits  toward  the  East, 

*  *     *     *     where  faint  and  fair, 
Along  the  tingling  desert  of  the  sky, 
Beyond  the  circle  of  the  conscious  hills, 
Were  laid,  in  jasper-stone,  as  clear  as  glass, 
The  first  foundations  of  that  new,  near  Day 
Which  should  be  builded  out  of  heaven  to  God  ! 

*  *     *     *     « Jasper  first,'  I  said, 
'And  second,  sapphire;  third,  chalcedony; 
The  rest  in  order;  last,  an  amethyst.'  " 


THE      END. 


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ON  PKECIOUS  THINGS  OF  GOD,     . 


oo 

50 
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25 

75 


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25 

40 
(iO 
60 

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60 

50 

00 

75 
5° 

600 

2  00 

75 

75 
50 
5° 

6 

75 
oo 

75 
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500 
500 
250 
3  00 

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. 


UNIYEBSITY   OF    CALIFOBNIA  LIBBABY, 
BEBKELEY 


SEP  23  1931 
AUG  15  1942 


REC'D 


DLU  2  6  1962 


75rn-7,'30 


> 


VC  07257 


. 
fffififiiiiiiiiiiiififil 


